(Reuters) – Authorities in Russia’s Tuva republic in southern Siberia ordered the evacuation of nearly 500 schoolchildren from summer camps as emergency workers battled to contain 31 wildfires raging across forests, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Vladislav Khovalyg said on the Telegram app that the children would be transported on buses to the regional capital Kyzyl “in the next few hours”.
Authorities declared a state of emergency earlier on Sunday in forested parts of Tuva, a republic bordering Mongolia that is roughly the size of the U.S. state of Florida and has a population around 300,000.
Regional emergency services wrote on Telegram that around 2,850 hectares (7,043 acres) of forest were on fire as of Sunday morning, and that some blazes were close to populated areas.
Some 460 personnel were involved in extinguishing the blazes, the Interfax news agency cited local authorities as saying.
Intense heat, strong winds and dry thunderstorms frequently cause forest fires across Russia in summer months.
The 2021 fire season was Russia’s largest ever, setting emissions records and destroying 18.8 million hectares of forest, according to Greenpeace Russia – about two times the size of the island of Ireland.
(Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Ros Russell)
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