Fire-fighters in the central Russian city of Voronezh have put out the last of the blazes that killed 5 people and left over 500 homeless, an emergency official said on Friday.
The fires that began last week raged over an area of 3,200 hectares (7,910 acres) in the city’s outskirts. Hospitals and children’s summer camps were evacuated as the city’s streets filled with a thick, acrid smoke.
“The fire was extinguished at 8.15 p.m. (16:15 GMT). There are now no fires in the region,” an Emergencies Ministry official told RIA Novosti.
Wildfires continue however to rage across much of the central part of European Russia as the country experiences an unprecedented heat wave, with temperatures of up to and above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The death toll in the blazes rose to 52 on Friday.
There are blazes in 22 Russian regions. On Thursday, NASA satellites Terra and Aqua registered 535 hotspots from wildfires across Russia.
Moscow was shrouded in a thick cloud of toxic smog on Friday as smoke from nearby peat bog and forest fires severely reduced visibility and led to health officials warning people to stay inside.
VORONEZH, August 6 (RIA Novosti)
