Forest fires fanned by strong winds in three Russian regions killed at least one person, officials said Monday, amid a heatwave linked to climate change.
A 49-year-old man died while trying to put out a fire near the village of Krasny Yar in the Tyumen region in western Siberia, the regional administration said.
A state of emergency was declared across the entire region, its governor Alexander Moor said Sunday night.
Twelve forest fires were active on Monday morning in Tyumen, covering more than 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres), the state-run news agency TASS said.
“The situation is compounded by the weather: it’s hot, dry, very windy. Gusts of wind are spreading the fire over hundreds of metres in just a few seconds,” Moor said.
In recent years, Russia‘s forest fires have been starting earlier and earlier in the face of rising temperatures.
According to officials, the fires are primarily set off by people barbecuing in the woods or countryside or during spring clearing operations.
The minister of emergency situations, Alexander Kurenkov, travelled to the Kurgan region 1,600 kilometres (994 miles) to the east of Moscow. He said nine of the 13 active fires there were under control.
An unusual heatwave with temperatures of up to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) and strong winds helped spread the flames, Kurenkov said.
Nearly 1,300 people were deployed to Kurgan to fight the fires.
Dozens of forest fires also struck the neighbouring region of Sverdlovsk, spreading over up to 54,000 hectares, according to officials.
“Residents who care are bringing water in large tanks… Cars arrive, we load everything quickly and the water is taken directly to the fire,” Igor Rusinov, coordinator of a volunteer organisation, told AFP.
Yury Buts, who lives in one of the areas affected by the fires, said he had never seen anything like it before.
“It was two days ago in the evening that we first started smelling smoke,” he said.
“Fires were breaking out here and there.”
