The fires were taken into the ring of defense – Newspaper Kommersant No. 156 (7357) of 08/26/2022
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The situation with forest fires in the Ryazan region remains extremely difficult, and statements by officials are increasingly reminiscent of reports from the battlefield. So, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Alexander Kurenkov, said that they were trying to localize the spread of fire by creating a mineralized strip around the “head of the fire”, and assured: “The second line of defense is already fully prepared.” And the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, predicts that “the fire area will increase even more in one or two days, until it reaches the final front line.” Despite the fact that a group of more than 9 thousand people has been assembled to fight the elements, the fire area is really growing. The Ministry of Emergency Situations saw “sabotage moments” in what was happening and did not rule out that the fires could have arisen due to targeted arson. WWF Russia says that the likelihood of such a scenario is low.
On Thursday, the Ryazan region, where forest fires are raging for the third week, was inspected by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov and the Ministry of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov, as well as Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. The area covered by fire in the region increased by 3,000 hectares per day and is almost 15,000 hectares. According to Mr. Grigorenko, five settlements are located in a potentially dangerous zone – they are plowed around the perimeter with a protective strip, fire engines are constantly on duty here. The mayor of the capital calls the situation with fires in the neighboring region “very difficult”: “The two mineralized strips that have been created will still make it possible to stop the fire in the north. But we must understand that the fire area itself will increase even more in one or two days, until it reaches the final front line, which we put up. Mr. Kurenkov also spoke about the intention to encircle the fire, thereby localizing it: “Now the mineralized strip has been completed, the second line of defense is already fully prepared.” The head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations added that counter annealing of forests will be carried out at night.
Recall that due to the heat and lack of rain in the Central Federal District, an extremely fire hazardous situation has developed. By August 17, the smoke from them reached Moscow: residents in different parts of the city began to complain about the smell of burning, ash deposits and smog. The city authorities sent equipment to the neighboring region to extinguish fires, and investigators from the Ministry of Emergency Situations opened a criminal case into two forest fires in the Ryazan region. Representatives of local authorities were suspected of concealing the real scale of the disaster, and the Prosecutor General’s Office joined in assessing the circumstances of the occurrence of natural fires. On August 22, an emergency mode was introduced in the Ryazan region due to fires. The White House has established a commission to eliminate forest fires.
In three settlements of the Ryazan region – the village of Peredeltsy in the Ryazan region, the villages of Malinovka and Kriusha in the Klepikov region – the norms of harmful substances were exceeded, the regional Center for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring reported. Due to forest fires, the administration of Ryazan decided to cancel fireworks on the occasion of the 927th anniversary of the founding of the city, which will be celebrated on August 27.
Despite the fact that Rosleskhoz earlier said that local authorities were hiding the real extent of the fires, on Thursday the Ministry of Emergency Situations revealed another reason for the spread of the disaster. According to Alexander Kurenkov, the department has information that there were arsons in the forests of the Ryazan region.
“I would like to draw attention to the fact that we see certain sabotage moments from the point of view that in the future there are elements of arson in the head of the fire,” the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations told reporters. “We would like to warn the population that we are waiting for signals about those people who did it.”
On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Grigorenko also held a meeting in the village of Kuzmiyar, Nizhny Novgorod region. According to him, the fire in the region is “practically localized”: “There is smoke, it takes several days to cope with it. More than a thousand people and 200 pieces of equipment are involved in the fight against the fire. We are monitoring the situation on a daily basis. Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Gleb Nikitin said that all forests in the region are provided with a video surveillance system: “Thanks to it, we were able to detect the fire in a timely manner and start extinguishing it. As a result, the fire area was about 7 thousand hectares. In 2010, here, in the Vorotynsky district, about 50 thousand hectares burned out.”
Dmitry Grigorenko said that after analyzing the situation, recommendations will be developed to change the regulatory framework so that firefighters can quickly respond to a fire and engage in preventive work.
Konstantin Kobyakov from WWF Russia notes that he does not know how reliable the information about arson reported by the Ministry of Emergency Situations is: “Intentional arson cannot be ruled out, but their statistical probability is still not very high.” According to him, practice shows that 99% of fires at the peak of the second half of the fire season are due to careless handling of fire. At the same time, Konstantin Kobyakov points out that the concealment of real fire areas by local authorities is a fairly common problem.
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