Wildfires sweep across 49,000 hectares in Russian Far East
Copyright 2001 ITAR-TASS News Agency
October 3, 2001
By Boris Savelyev
KHABAROVSK, October 3 - Almost 49,000 hectares of forest are ablaze in Russia's Far Eastern Primorye region.
The wildfires are sweeping across the taiga and peat marshes around the city of Khabarovsk, and the area ablaze is expanding. Concentrations of carbon dioxide, sulfur and other toxic combustion products in the air are severalfold above normal.
The air contamination affects people with chronic respiratory diseases and the elderly.
Doctors advised the city population to use gauze masks and respirators for protection against smoke. The city's pharmacies sold out all oxygen bags.
Khabarovsk's pulmonological centre is giving hotline telephone consultations to all in need of respiratory care.
Calls to the ambulance service have been surging. Doctors say however, that most of impacts of the smoke-out are expectable within a month as harmful substances accumulate in the organism.
A spokesman for the regional emergencies centre told Itar- Tass on Wednesday that there had been seven new conflagrations in the region, covering an additional 1,110 hectares of forest.
The emergencies centre supplied fuel for the fire-fighting hardware and sent seven planes and helicopters for forest patrolling and ferrying fire-fighters to inaccessible areas.
A 400 force and 60 units of machinery are involved in fire-fighting. Regional emergencies ministry and military units help the operations. There is no direct threat to residential areas so far.