Forest fires rage in central Russia, trigger mass evacuation

MOSCOW, July 30 (Itar-Tass) -- Forest fires resulting from record-high
and long heatwave and drought quickly spread in central Russia because of
strong wind on Thursday and destroyed nearly 500 wooden houses forcing
rescuers to launch mass evacuation of people.
The emergency department of Nizhni Novgorod region said fires swept
away the village of Upper Vereya in less than an hour destroying all the
341 wooden buildings. All the 580 residents of Upper Vereya were evacuated.
"There are no victims and all the people have been accommodated in two
school buildings in the town of Vyksha," a spokesman of the emergency
service said.
Houses were also on fire in the village of Tamboles with 308 residents
and 205 buildings. Evacuation is underway.
Twelve out of 34 houses were also on fire in the village of Borkovka
and residents were evacuated.
The emergency service said additional firefighting teams from
neighboring regions have been dispatched.
In Voronezh region raging fires killed a fireman raising the death
toll to two, spokeswoman of the Russian Emergency ministry Irina
Andiranova said.
Authorities had to bloc traffic on a 100-kilometer section of the Don
highway in Voronezh region as surrounding forests were on fire and the
smoke reduced visibility to 50 meters.
Fires have surrounded Voronezh outskirts from the north, west and
south. Rescuers evacuated over 600 children from summer camps and patients
of a hospital. Twenty wooden residential houses were burnt down.
Local emergency service said over 600 hectares of forests were on fire
in the past week and close to 50 houses were destroyed.
In Volgograd region forest fires rage on a territory of 200 hectares,
however the threat to four residential settlements with 500 residents was
eliminated, local emergency service spokeswoman Yelena Rodionova said.
Strong wind aggravated the situation with peat fires in three
eastern/southeast districts around Moscow - Yegoryevsk, Kolomna and
Shatura, Viktor Klimkin, deputy chief of the Russian Emergency Situations
Ministry's Moscow branch said on Thursday night.
"Because of the wind these blazes are moving to the category of crown
fires from ground fires," he said.
Klimkin said the fires do not pose an immediate threat for Moscow.
In the meantime, the Russian Railways Company (RZD) warned raging
forest fires may bloc rail traffic to the southeast.
RZD said it may find it necessary to introduce changes in the
schedules "to ensure the security of traffic and safety of passengers."