Firefighters struggled yesterday to contain the worst wildfires to hit Russia for decades, as a relentless heatwave and campfires left burning by the public sparked hundreds of new blazes.

President Dmitry Medvedev has declared a state of emergency in seven Russian regions over the fires which have left tens of thousands of hectares ablaze, uprooted several thousand people and killed at least 40.

The emergency services appeared to make few inroads yesterday with new fires appearing as quickly as they doused existing blazes. Officials said 300-400 new fires were appearing every 24 hours.

Hundreds of emergency workers were sent into the city of Sarov, the location of Russia’s main nuclear research facility, to ensure the top-secret site was not damaged by fires on the city’s outskirts.

Vladimir Stepanov, head of the emergency ministry’s crisis centre, told reporters that hot weather was the main factor impeding efforts to put out the fires. “Work is going on day and night. It is a real battle,” he said.

Shifting winds were complicating the situation, he said. “The situation is changing in every region. It changes several times in the course of the day.”

Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Medvedev there had been a deterioration after the weekend because people had been careless in their leisure activities, including with barbecues.

“The weekend has given us a real race. We will put the situation on a more or less acceptable level over the next two-three days,” he said, adding that 155,000 people were involved in the efforts to douse the fires.

“We are in control of the situation but it is in flux. In some places it gets out of control and operative forces have to be moved in.”

Russians descend in hordes to the countryside every weekend to barbecue meat, sing songs and drink vodka around campfires. It appears they have not been put off by the wildfires and extreme heat.

More than 500 fires were raging in Russia yesterday over an area of 170,000 hectares after more than 300 new fires broke out over the past day, Russian news agencies quoted the Emergencies Ministry as saying.

Reports said the situation in Sarov was under control after the arrival of the emergency services.

The Regional Development Ministry said 3,493 people had been displaced by the fires, which had destroyed 1,910 homes, the Interfax news agency reported.

A country notorious for its bitterly cold winters, Russia is enduring its severest heatwave for decades which saw all-time temperature records tumble throughout July.

Forecasters warned the record temperatures would continue in the coming days, with no rain forecast and the mercury expected to hit 38⁰Celsius in Moscow this week.

The heatwave has also hurt Russia’s agriculture industry, and the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday it was cutting its grain harvest forecast by millions of tonnes due to the drought.

The weather forecasting centre said the heat was caused by an area of high pressure known as an anti-cyclone that was parked over Russia and would not shift until later this month.

The areas worst hit by the fires have been the countryside around Moscow and other regions in European Russia. The Nizhny Novgorod region east of the capital has seen the worst toll with up to 20 people losing their lives.

There has been unusual public criticism that authorities were slow to react to the spreading fires and officials made high-profile efforts to show they were in control.

In typically idiosyncratic style, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced he would personally monitor the recovery effort through remote cameras installed at every significant reconstruction site.

He said the cameras would broadcast images to the government headquarters, his own house and the government’s Internet site.

“Every citizen can thus see in real time what is being done on the ground,” he said in comments broadcast on state television.

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