Russia's air force has put out 753,000 hectares of forest fires in Siberia in four days, the country's Ministry of Defence said on Sunday, as environmentalists described the blazes raging across the region as an ecological catastrophe.
"After four days of work in the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions, the Russian airforce has managed to extinguish forest fires on an area of 753,000 hectares (7,530 square kilometres)," the Ministry said in a statement.
On Sunday, the statement added, Il-76 military transport aircraft carried out a total of 24 missions in which they threw 1,008 tons of water into the forests.
In addition, Mi-8 helicopters conducted 37 flights and threw another 6,500 tons of water.
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