Areas affected by wildfires in Russia shrank by 3,000 hectares over the past 24 hours, the Emergency Situations Ministry said on Sunday.
The ministry said the territory engulfed by wildfires was 53,000 hectares at present.
In the Moscow region, firefighters have cut the area of wildfires by another 20 hectares but the situation with peat bog fires and wildfires continues to be tense in the neighboring Ryazan and Vladimir regions, from which smoke has been blown into Moscow again by southeastern winds, the ministry said.
Two NASA satellites registered a total of 368 hotspots from fires across Russia on Saturday, with the central part of the country being the worst affected.
A scorching heat wave has gripped much of European Russia since mid-June, which coupled with the worst drought since the 1970s has made the countryside particularly susceptible to wildfires.
Thousands of emergency workers and military personnel have been working round the clock for almost three weeks to fight fires in 22 Russian regions, which have so far killed more than 50 people and left over 3,500 homeless. The immediate economic cost of the fires has been estimated at $15 billion.
MOSCOW, August 15 (RIA Novosti)
