Putin tells officials to deal with Siberian forest fires

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on regional officials to act quickly in battling forest fires amid a series of blazes in Siberia and the Urals that have killed 16 people in recent weeks, raising fears that this season may be even worse than last year, the worst on record. "We cannot allow a repeat of last year's situation, when forest fires were the most long-lasting and intensive of recent years." Russian Emergencies Minister Aleksandr Chupriyan said that  there had already been some 4,000 wildfires this year so far, destroying almost 1,300 buildings, including 730 residential houses, forcing the Siberian region of Kurgan on May 10 to impose a state of emergency.

In another Siberian region, Omsk, a local court on May 10 sent the mayor of the town of Nazyvayevsk to pretrial detention on a charge of abuse of power over a devastating fire that reached the town and nearby village, destroying about 100 houses, leaving some 250 people homeless. Since last week, deadly wildfires were reported in the Siberian regions of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Zabaikalye Krai, Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Khakasia, and Yakutia. The 2021 season was Russia's worst ever, with 18.8 million hectares of forest destroyed by fire, according to Green peace Russia which says that as of late April wildfires were more widespread than at the same point last year, though they were below the average for recent years.