Subscribe to our channel! rupt.ly/subscribe Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Region Alexander Uss said that tackling forest fires in Siberia is ‘meaningless’ and ‘sometimes even harmful’ in the city of Divnogorsk on Sunday.
“It is not just the government, it is just a natural phenomenon with which fighting is meaningless and sometimes even harmful. It is an absolutely practical issue,” he said.
The governor expressed his concern about the risks that can affect people who will be sent to fight fires.
“Today we can deploy paratroopers in the zone of control. There are thousands of people. With such level of smoke, we will really put people in meaningless danger. It will take more than three hours to reach the epicenter. How can they be rescued if fire, that burns treetops, emerges?” Alexander Uss added.
More than 1.6 million hectares of forest are ablaze in Siberia. According to the Russian Aerial Forest Protection Service, the worst hit areas are located in the regions of Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai.
The fires are raging through Siberia caused by high temperatures, lightning strikes and strong winds.
Thick smog has already reached some of the largest cities of Siberia such as Novosibirsk and Tomsk. And it continues to spread to the Urals and several regions in neighbouring Kazakhstan.
SOT, Alexander Uss, Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Region (Russian): "So, indeed let us think. We have two categories of territories. There is a category which is named 'zone of control' – there, where the fire cannot be put out in principle and there is 'protection zone' where fires can be put out. Regarding 'zone of control' it is a northern territory basically. Fires emerge regularly and basically from lightning activity. It was happening 100, 200 and 500 years ago. If we have cold weather during winters and a snowstorm emerges nobody has an idea of stoking icebergs in order to get the weather warmer. I think, something similar can be related to woods’ fires in 'zone of control'. It is not just the government it is just a natural phenomenon with which fighting is meaningless and somewhere it is harmful. It is an absolutely practical issue. Today we can deploy paratroopers in the zone of control. There are thousands of people. With such level of smoke, we will really put people in meaningless danger. It will take more than three hours to reach the epicenter. How can they be rescued if fire, that burns treetops, emerges? This year a territory effected by the fire is similar to last year. This year it is slightly smaller, slightly smaller, but it does not mean the work is organized more actively. It is just weather patterns, nothing more. Today there are still small fires in the security zone in Vokuch and Povinsk regions, where certain danger for localities exists. Touch on wood, today there are no difficulties and dangers in those regions. But the dramatization of this theme regarding the city of Krasnoyarsk and Siberia region, shall we say, has an objective psychological basis related to a high smoke level. The hit area is smaller, it is not so big. And the wind has been blowing from the north for the past ten days. Today the affected area is the same as the day before yesterday. But the visibility and the weather are good because the wind has changed. That is what the situation looks like. But at the same time, I think that we will have to make decisions on active position related to the firefighting in the north in the nearest years, if we can say so."
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