The abnormal heatwave has hit the entire northern hemisphere, not just European Russia where it has caused wildfires that are raging across the country.
Initially, the fire-fighting and relief work was the responsibility of Russia's Emergencies Ministry headed by Sergei Shoigu; however, once it became clear that they were not coping with the force majeure, the government began involving internal troops and other army units in the effort.
A 155,000-strong force has been organized to fight the fires, including 129,000 Emergencies Ministry officers, according to Vladimir Stepanov, head of the ministry's crisis unit. They have at their disposal 25,000 special vehicles, including 56 aircraft, which can disperse up to 2,500 metric tons of water over the blazing fires daily.
Yet, with the Emergencies Ministry failing to extinguish the fires, units of the armed forces became involved. Over 4,000 troops joined in the relief effort, bringing with them over 100 more special vehicles. The armed forces' pipeline-laying units are proving especially valuable. They were created to facilitate the transport of large amounts of liquids over long distances at short notice. Their pipelines are very effective in supplying water to fight fires and flood peat bogs.
Such emergency pipelines are currently being laid in the Moscow Region to supply water to the Shatura and Yegoryevsk Districts where the largest peat bogs are located. Two 18-km lines are being laid by the Moscow Military District pipeline unit, which is expected to lay 30 km of pipelines.
The army is not only fighting fires in the Moscow Region. Trainee paratroopers are fighting fires in the Ryazan Region; army units have been called in to reinforce local brigades as wildfires began closing in on Sarov (also known as Arzamas-16) where one of Russia's largest nuclear research facilities is located. Although it is unlikely to cause any unpleasant nuclear consequences, the fire can still affect the strategic plant's operation, so the situation around Sarov is being closely monitored.
This is not the first time that the army has been used to fight fires. In 1972, over 350,000 people participated in the effort, including over 100,000 troops. Pipeline-laying brigades and civil defense units were involved, using tens of thousands of vehicles and dispersing and pumping nearly 90,000 tons of water daily into the blazing peat bogs.
That firefighting effort was supervised by the Politburo of the Communist Party Central Committee and personally controlled by the Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Andrei Grechko, who spent two months in Shatura, the administrative center of the most affected district of the Moscow Region.
Regional and local authorities operated very differently from today. Most middle managers were war veterans, aged 50-55. Local authorities were much more active, recruiting volunteers, arranging equipment supply and fundraising with local companies - in other words, they did much more than report to their superiors. In fact, despite the Soviet centralized management system, which is used as a derogatory term today, people then took initiative at every level, from the Council of Ministers to the district executive committees.
A comparison of how the situation was handled in 1972 and how it is being handled in 2010 raises a few questions. There was no emergencies ministry in the Soviet Union, and civil defense was therefore the Defense Ministry's responsibility. So using troops to fight fires was the most logical option.
Today, there is the Emergencies Ministry, which is officially in charge of civil defense, yet it does not seem to have sufficient resources to deal with the wildfires. This fact is easily explained: The agency was never designed to handle a disaster of this scale. One of the main reasons the fire got out of control so quickly is that the old Soviet fire safety system has been disabled.
There used to be forest guard units to take preventive measures such as making clearings, building roads and firebreaks, ground or aerial burning and clearing away dead-wood. There were even forest guard airborne units which flew An-2 planes and helicopters. Although incapable of dispersing large amounts of water on forest fires, which was not their goal, these crews were very effective in detecting new fires fast: A small fire is easy to put out with a fire-extinguisher.
In particularly hot weather, woods were closed to the public and vehicles, while those parks officially open to the public were strictly monitored. Anyone caught breaking the rules was punished: An illegal bonfire could mean a prison sentence.
This system ensured that wildfires were rare in European Russia; only sparsely populated taiga regions remained prone to such disasters.
The dismantling of the Soviet forest guard began in the 1980s. No such service exists today. Where once there were 70,000 foresters, now there are 12,000 forest inspectors who are busy with paperwork for three-quarters of their working hours. No aircraft are available.
The Federal Service for the Supervision of Natural Resources, Russia's environmental watchdog, is now responsible for protecting the forests. But the agency cannot ensure fire safety due to a lack of resources and funding. The situation became even more fraught after a new Forest Code came into force in 2007. The fire-safety and firefighting functions were delegated to regional authorities, which themselves lack funds and resources, they are also unable to monitor the situation, make forecasts and coordinate other regions' efforts.
The difference becomes especially obvious if one looks at Belarus, which is also experiencing an extraordinary hot summer. Although that country also has vast forests, the fire situation there is not far off normal, due to their preservation of the Soviet forest guard system.
It is also clear that the Russian Emergencies Ministry's air fleet is far from adequate - four Be-200 aircraft, only three of them in good repair, and as many Il-76 transport airplanes which can also be used to extinguish fires with the help of 42-ton spray tanks.
The situation could be improved by involving more of the Il-76 planes owned by Russia's Air Force, and possibly some civil aircraft, but the number of spray tanks available may be limited. The government has announced plans to add more Be-200 planes to the Emergencies Ministry fleet, bringing their total number up to 18. But this will not be enough either, and besides, it is too late.
The ministry also has several fire-fighting helicopters, but their number is not enough and they cannot carry as much water as planes.
Fighter jets could also be used to extinguish wildfires - bombers are able to use innovative dual-use technology, the ASP-500, to deliver water to the exact location of the epicenter of the fire, unlike Il-76s and Be-200s, which disperse water widely, much of it evaporating before it is anywhere near the target. Yet, the government has not yet allocated enough funding for the commercial production of this innovation developed by the Bazalt design bureau.
A real solution for the future, apart from restoring a centralized forest fire-safety system, would be to use a combination of various forces, the Emergencies Ministry and Defense Ministry planes and helicopters, provided in advance with the necessary fire-fighting equipment. A special federal program is needed to organize this kind of work. We can only hope that the officials have received a wake-up call strong enough to prompt them into action before the next hot summer.
Ilya Kramnik, RIA Novosti military commentator
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
