Russia Fights 334 Wildfires; Moscow Choking From Drifting Peat-Bog Smoke
July 28 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Olivia Sterns reports on forest fires in Russia which are raising concerns over higher food prices and an increase in the rate of inflation. (Source: Bloomberg)
Russian emergency crews are fighting 334 forest fires covering an area of 81,321 hectares (201,000 acres), as Moscow remains wrapped in smoke from burning peat bogs east of the city.
Firefighters extinguished 367 blazes across the country in the last 24 hours, including 47 on peat bogs drained for agriculture in the Soviet era, the Emergency Situations Ministry said on its website today. Of the bog fires, 43 occurred in the Moscow region. Since the start of the fire season, 21,209 fires have claimed 449,634 hectares of forest.
Moscow authorities asked motorists to avoid the city center “in order not to aggravate the already difficult environmental situation,” the transportation department said on its website. A “sharp burning smell” has pervaded the entire city, and “particularly intense smog” has settled in the south, southeast and east of the city, the department said.
A heat wave has set temperature records in many cities this month and compounded a drought that led the government to declare weather-related emergencies in 23 crop-producing regions. Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said on July 23 that the drought had damaged 10.1 million hectares, or 32 percent of all land under cultivation.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Henry in Moscow at phenry8@bloomberg.net
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