MOSCOW — Vast sections of Russia were under a state of emergency Friday as more than 10,000 firefighters fought to save villages and forests from being reduced to ash and ember during the country’s hottest summer on record.
At least 25 deaths were reported in the past two days alone, and the Kremlin called out the army to help as fires raged over 214,136 acres of woodland and peat bog.
More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed, and thousands of people have been forced to flee as blazes left their houses in smoldering ruins and filled the air with smog and ash.
Weeping women greeted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he visited Verkhnyaya Vereya, a village where all 341 homes were burned to the ground and five residents were killed in the blaze.
The village, one of three hamlets destroyed around Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s fifth-largest city, about 300 miles east of Moscow, looked like a ghost town coated in gray ash.
“Before winter, each house will be restored,” Putin told the distressed crowd. “I promise — the village will be rebuilt.”
One sobbing woman thanked him for his “serious talk” and promises of 200,000 rubles, or $6,500, in compensation for each villager. Putin kissed her on the cheek.
Officials declared a state of emergency in 27 of Russia’s 83 regions, with the hardest-hit being the Moscow region — which doesn’t include the city itself — and other areas south and east of the capital.
In all, nearly 2.5 million acres of land have been consumed by wildfires so far this season.
The mercury hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit Thursday in Moscow, setting a new record, and July was the hottest month ever recorded in Russia.
Numbers
2.5 million Acres burned in Russia this fire season
25 Deaths from the most recent wildfires, which are raging over 214,136 acres
14 Number of degrees in Fahrenheit that Moscow has been above the normal temperature this July
