Fires Destroy 160,000 Hectares of Taiga in Khabarovsk Region
ITAR-TASS News Agency, August 13, 2003
By Boris Savelyev and Petr Tsyrendorzhiyev
Khabarovsk — More than 160,000 hectares of taiga have been destroyed this year in Russia’s Khabarovsk region, which was most hit by the blaze among Far Eastern regions, the Far Eastern forest protection service said on Wednesday.
Almost all fires have been localized there and firefighters have only failed so far to put out the remaining four fire centers. All of them are concentrated in the Komsomolsky forest reserve, where 150 hectares of woodland are on fire.
Meanwhile, situation in Yakutia and the Magadan region has aggravated. Fourteen new fires have been registered over the past 24 hours in those regions, where heat wave and drought persist.
According to the service, 104 forest fires are registered there at present.
Rains on Russia’s Sakhalin Island have improved the situation with forest fires, the local administration told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.
Three fires covering the area of over 4,000 hectares have been liquidated in that region. All in all, fires have destroyed over 22,000 hectares of taiga in that region this summer.
