Wildfire area in Siberia halves in past 24 hours

The wildfire area in Russia\'s Siberian regions has halved in the past twenty-four hours, a spokesman for the Siberian regional emergencies administration told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. According to the spokesman, there were nine fires on an overall area of 559 hectares by Tuesday morning, six of these nine were contained on an area of 364 hectares. The remaining fires are located in the Transbaikal territory. On Monday, fire fighters put out 39 out of 44 wildfires on an area of 468.3 out of 680.3 hectares in the Transbaikal territory, the Irkutsk and Omsk regions, and in the republic of Buryatia. Fire fighting operations in the past twenty-four hours involved 1,211 men and 272 units of hardware. A Mi-8 helicopter of the Siberian regional emergencies centre made six flights to airlift fire fighters to the beds of fire. On Tuesday, fire fighting operations will be continued in the Kyrinsky district of the Transbaikal territory, the spokesman added.