Yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised wildfire victims that their homes would be rebuilt on the same scale as they were before the fires and adopted additional fire prevention measures. Notably, the Moscow Region will receive an additional 300 million roubles for flooding peat bogs, and the Federal Agency for Forestry will be put under direct government control.
Like dozens of Russian villages, a wildfire swept through the town of Kriusha on that ill-fated day of July 29. At that time, fires had wiped out the towns of Verkhnyaya Vereya and Borkovka in the Nizhny Novgorod Region in a matter of minutes, and fires approached the outskirts of Voronezh and burned down the village of Mokhovoye in the Moscow Region. Although most of Kriusha's 435 homes survived, 54 burned down. However, this could have been avoided.
"We could have saved the town if we had a fire engine. The fire started near the forest and was not a very serious fire at first. One fire engine filled with water would have sufficed. But the firefighters arrived without any water, started pumping water from the lake, but the pump broke down," local residents told Izvestia.
The corresponding decision to provide fire departments with additional equipment has already been made, Vladimir Putin told wildfire victims in Kriushi.
Construction work is in full swing in Kriushi. Heavy-duty equipment is razing the site of the fire, and charred trees are gradually being felled and removed. The first new home is already being constructed. Builders can complete the most basic home without any interior decoration in two weeks. Ryazan Region Governor Oleg Kovalyov said all new homes in the town are to be commissioned by September 15 and that finishing touches will be added later on.
Fire victims believe the government's promises, but they are concerned about the sizes of the new houses being constructed. The frame of the first incomplete home seems too small.
"People should receive homes that have at least the same floor space as those destroyed by the fires. Of course, this does not apply to a huge mansion with an area of hundreds and maybe thousands of square metres," the prime minister told local residents.
After a meeting in Ryazan, the prime minister said that residents of the Moscow Region would soon stop suffering from carbon monoxide. The government has decided to provide the region with an additional 300 million roubles which will be used to flood the most dangerous foci. The federal agency will be directly subordinated to the government in order to avoid future misunderstandings between the departments responsible for forest fire prevention.
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GLONASS receivers to be installed in all Russian motor vehicles
Beginning in 2012, all Russian-made cars may be sold with built-in ERA-GLONASS receivers for use during road accidents, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a meeting on the expansion of Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System yesterday.
"The ERA-GLONASS system should be deployed nationwide by 2014. However, I suppose that all new motor vehicles could be sold with built-in ERA-GLONASS receivers. This will minimize the amount of time it takes to respond to an emergency. The project's test version will be implemented already this year in Tatarstan, and the Kaluga and Moscow Regions," Putin said.
Anastasia Savinykh