MOSCOW, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Wildfires have burnt a total of 6.03 million hectares of forest in Russia since the start of the year, the Russian Federal Aerial Forest Protection Service said Thursday.
Firefighting efforts are now underway on 12,110 hectares of forest in 24 regions of the country, mainly in Siberia and the Far East, the service said in a statement.
The work involves 2,752 people, 339 pieces of equipment and 33 aircraft, it said.
As of Wednesday, fires have also been raging on 295,036 hectares of hard-to-reach lands, posing no threat to settlements or economic facilities, while the costs of extinguishing them exceed the harm they might cause, it added. Enditem
