A second amphibious aircraft of the Emergencies Ministry has arrived in Irkutsk Region to help fight forest fires along the Baikal shoreline. Special equipment has been working in the region since August 8, and Il 76 planes have also been deployed, with army aviation forces being reinforced. As of August 11, 23 fires were active in the region over more than 30 thousand hectares, seven of them contained.
Today, August 12, the second amphibious aircraft of the Siberian Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations arrived, and it will begin extinguishing forest fires along the shoreline of Lake Baikal. This was reported by the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Irkutsk Region.Recall that special equipment, including the BE-200 aircraft, has been operating in the Irkutsk Region since August 8 on Lake Baikal. The Russian Ministry of Defense has redeployed two Il-76 aircraft equipped with VAP-2 aerial discharge devices from Ulan-Ude to the Irkutsk Region to extinguish forest fires. In addition, the group of army aviation in the Republics of Tuva and Buryatia is being reinforced.
As of August 11, 2015, 23 fires were active in the region in the Bayandaevsky, Zhigalovsky, Irkutsky, Kazachinsko-Lensky, Kachugsky, Olkhonsky, and Shelekhovsky districts, covering a total area of more than 30 thousand hectares, seven of them localized.