Moscow fires

[wautd]

Suprised nobody has posted this yet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10832525

Russia faces new wildfire threat

Forecasts of up to 40C (104F) for central and southern Russia next week are piling on pressure as the country battles its worst wildfires in decades.

Firefighters reduced the nationwide area on fire from 129,000 ha (319,000 acres) to 114,000 ha (282,000 acres) on Saturday, the government said.

But more new fires erupted than were extinguished, and 438 were still burning on Sunday.

Thousands of people have lost their homes and this week saw 28 deaths.

Nearly a quarter of a million emergency workers have been deployed to fight the flames with the help of hundreds of soldiers.

President Dmitry Medvedev described the situation on Saturday as a "natural disaster of the kind that probably only happens every 30 or 40 years".

More famous for its bitterly cold winters, the giant country's European part normally enjoys short, warm summers. The number of fires recorded this year is only about 20% higher than in 2009, according to Russian emergencies ministry data.

However, this July was the hottest month on record, with Moscow, which sees an average high of 23C in the summer months, sweltering in 37.8C heat last Thursday.

'Never like this'

"The threat of new fires has increased sharply due to unfavourable weather in a number of regions in the Central and Volga federal districts, with temperatures soaring to up to 40C and winds of up to 20 metres per second," the emergencies ministry said.

On Saturday, 369 new fires were registered while 338 were extinguished.

To date, 10 different Russian regions have been affected with 1,257 homes destroyed and 5,200 people evacuated, the emergencies ministry said.

Worst hit were the regions of Voronezh, Ryazan, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Moscow, Mordovia (capital: Saransk), Nizhny Novgorod and Tatarstan (capital: Kazan).

"There has never been a fire like this," firefighter Maxim Korolyov told AFP news agency in the village of Maslovka, Voronezh, where reportedly all but five of 150 houses burnt down on Friday.

"It's the first time I have had to fight a fire of this size."

Elderly resident Vera Sakharova complained that firefighters had come too late.

"We did not have any help," she told AFP. "We had to do everything ourselves."

The government is under pressure to rebuild ruined homes in time for winter - a promise Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made to residents of one devastated village in Nizhny Novgorod when he visited on Friday.

Emergency officials say the heat and drought are the main causes of the fires but they also blame human carelessness and urged people to use extreme caution when walking or driving in the woods or countryside.

"Any source of fire, including a cigarette thrown from a car window, will ignite the dried grass," the emergencies ministry said.

or watch the vid

250 000(!) emergency workers but still no signs of controlling the fires, and as far as I know it's getting pretty close to Moscow's doorstep.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah. ~100 dead, about a thousand hospitalized.

Wanna know a funny thing? The individualism in Russia got to a point where each region was sitting on it's ass until their OWN forests started to burn. So one region was burning and another was doing nothing hoping it will 'save' budget money. Suddenly when the fires racked up a death toll, everyone started running and FINALLY called the Army.

People have been promised a compensation of 200 000 roubles (to explain, a typical flat in a city costs 1 000 000 roubles, as does a private house in a village usually). What an utter fucking joke.

[Kanastrous]

Is there a Russian equivalent to the US' National Forest Service, or does each region run its own forestry without interface with the Moscow government?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Is there a Russian equivalent to the US' National Forest Service, or does each region run its own forestry without interface with the Moscow government?

That role WAS filled by the military under the USSR. There's no Russian Federation equivalent.

[FSTargetDrone]

Area wheat crops are being destroyed:

Bad Russian wheat harvest boosts US farmers

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA (AP) – 2 hours ago

MOSCOW — A severe drought destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, the world's third-largest exporter, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained.

Expectations that Russia will slash exports by at least 30 percent have sent wheat prices soaring and this is good news for farmers in the world's largest wheat exporter — the United States.

The higher wheat prices may mean that Americans and Europeans pay slightly more for bread, but the bigger burden will fall on people in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia, analysts say.

The Russian Grain Union said Monday that it expects exports to decline to 15 million tons, down from 21.4 million tons in 2009, while the SovEcon consultancy sees them at 12 million tons and other analysts at even less.

"Russia has become the price-maker on the market," said Dmitry Rylko, director general of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, who says he expects minimal exports.

Russian farmers have little incentive to export. Even though grain prices are rising on world markets, with further gains on Monday, they are growing even faster in Russia, so many farmers are holding on to their harvested grain in the hopes of still higher profits.

The majority of the damage to Russia's wheat crop has been caused by the drought, one of the worst in decades as much of the country suffers through the hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago. But in recent days, wildfires raging through much of western Russia have spread into farmland and there are fears that more fields will be lost.

The director of a small state farm outside Moscow said fire destroyed its entire wheat crop one night before they planned to harvest.

"The fruits of the year's labor of the farm went up in smoke — this is very painful," said Pavel Grudinin, director of the Lenin State Farm, said Monday on Russian television. He said a woman who worked as a horticulturist at the farm was weeping in his office.

State farms have been marginalized since the fall of the Soviet Union and most of Russian grain production comes from big, often multinational companies. After years of stagnation, Russian agriculture has been on the upswing as Russian firms and foreign investment funds have started to buy up land and upgrade production.

Wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade surged in July by 42 percent, the biggest monthly gain in more than a half century, and are now the highest they have been in nearly two years. With no immediate end in sight for the drought in Russia, analysts expect prices to continue to rally.

Wheat futures rose more than 5 percent Monday to $6.975.

George Lee, who manages the agriculture fund at Eclectica Asset Management in London, said the United States and other exporters, principally Argentina and Australia, are set to be "big gainers," Lee said, while Canada, the third-largest global exporter, and the European Union are not looking at their best harvests.

He said the high wheat prices will hit hardest in the Middle East, Africa and parts of east Asia — or anywhere where governments subsidize the cost of food.

"The big losers will be consumers where the diets are more pure," Lee said. In Yemen, for instance, the price of bread tracks closely with the price of flour, whereas in Europe and the U.S. the commodity costs represent only part of a mix that includes packaging, marketing, etc.

"I don't think U.S. consumers will notice the price difference very much," he said.

Associated Press writer Robert Barr in London contributed to this report.

[Bernkastel]

Stas, the content of your post is rather disturbing. If this is true, which from what I know of you is likely, the chances of Russia solving its problems seem even worse. That kind of individualism is really terrible.

As for the post by FSTargetDrone, it seems that this fire couldn't have come at a worse time.

[wautd]

Wow, appearantly Putin had to 'fire' (pardon the pun) some high ranking military personnel because they managed to loose a military base to the fire while doing nothing

[Thanas]

Wow, appearantly Putin had to 'fire' (pardon the pun) some high ranking military personnel because they managed to loose a military base to the fire while doing nothing

Keep in mind that this is the same army that "lost" about a bataillon worth of tanks IIRC due to simply parking them somewhere and forgetting about them. They have some good units, but a lot is also substandard quality. I am sure somebody more familiar with this could elaborate more.

[K. A. Pital]

Wow, appearantly Putin had to 'fire' (pardon the pun) some high ranking military personnel because they managed to loose a military base to the fire while doing nothing

Keep in mind that this is the same army that "lost" about a bataillon worth of tanks IIRC due to simply parking them somewhere and forgetting about them. They have some good units, but a lot is also substandard quality. I am sure somebody more familiar with this could elaborate more.

I could, but some stuff that I know would be considered secret stuff. In any case, Thanas is right - the malaise in the Army is absolutely atrocious (as it is in all other parts of the Russian society, anyway). The recent massive cuts of the officer corps and reduction in the military schools is only a beginning of another massive downsize. "Preparing to fight the last war" again.

[Thanas]

I recently attended a security briefing by the BND (public one) and they said that they now considered the malaise in Russia's armed forces as the number one threat to stability and safety in the east/Baltic/Atlantic. That they would pick that over nations such as Iran, Afghanistan/Iraq or North Korea was quite telling.

[CJvR]

Wow, appearantly Putin had to 'fire' (pardon the pun) some high ranking military personnel because they managed to loose a military base to the fire while doing nothing

Wow! It takes quite a bit of nerve to stand and watch your command burn to the ground and do absolutely nothing about it, nerve or lots of Vodka.

[Kanastrous]

I'm betting on the vodka.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I recently attended a security briefing by the BND (public one) and they said that they now considered the malaise in Russia's armed forces as the number one threat to stability and safety in the east/Baltic/Atlantic. That they would pick that over nations such as Iran, Afghanistan/Iraq or North Korea was quite telling.

There's some pretty disturbing stories about what happens on draft day. From the Now Defunct True Slant

Last week, in a post associated with October 1, army draft day in Russia, I talked about the widespread phenomenon of “dedovshchina,” the “rule of the elders” that subjects recruits to beatings, hazing, robbery, enslavement and murder from their superiors. It is a serious blight on the army, one that drives morale down to literally suicidal levels and deprives it of some 100,000 potential recruits who do anything they can to get out of serving in such an abusive institution. Army officials claim it’s in decline; everyone else insists otherwise.

As if to prove everyone right, news emerges today, five days after draft day, that, on September 2, 16 recruits in a St. Petersburg unit were severely beaten by three drunken superiors. snip

Can't be good for unit training/morale/cohesion etc.

[Kanastrous]

Keeping soldiers terrified of their superiors is a time-honored method of maintaining discipline in the ranks. Though I'm guessing it's probably not the most effective one.

[Pelranius]

By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer – 58 mins ago

MOSCOW – A Russian military garrison near Moscow moved all its rockets and artillery to a safer location as wildfires advanced in the region, the government said Thursday.

Col. Alexei Kuznetsov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press that the garrison near Naro-Fominsk, 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Moscow, was not in immediate danger. But the decision to move the explosive materiel underlined the challenges posed by the hundreds of fires raging in Russia after weeks of intense heat and drought.

A wildfire leapt into a Russian naval air base outside Moscow last week, causing substantial damage; Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed.

Almost 600 fires, mostly in western Russia, were reported burning on Thursday. The death toll from the fires stands at 50.

Earlier, a shelter with some 1,800 animals near Moscow reported that it had been threatened by fires and that one had approached within 150 meters (yards) before being extinguished. But shelter director Daria Taraskina said late Thursday that there were no blazes nearby, though concern remained high for the dogs, cats and retired circus animals at the facility in Khoteichi, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Moscow.

Thick smog that had blanketed Moscow partially lifted early Thursday but could return with no end in sight to a record heat wave, officials warned.

Temperatures up to 100 F (38 C) have exacerbated forest and peat bog fires across Russia's central and western regions, destroying close to 2,000 homes. Officials have suggested the 10,000 firefighters battling the blazes aren't enough. The forecast for the week ahead shows little change in the capital and surrounding regions, where the average summer temperature is around 23 (75).

In the blaze-ravaged village of Plotava, some 35 miles (60 kilometers) east of Moscow, local official Viktor Sorokin lamented that the number of fire wardens in woodland and peat bog areas had halved to 150 in the last few years under new rules.

"There used to be more of them, now there aren't enough," he said.

Some locals are taking the initiative to make up the shortfall in firefighters.

"We woke up several days ago and we couldn't breathe," said Alexander Babayev, a 27-year-old owner of a drive-in theater, before taking a hose to low rising flames flickering above the smoldering ground.

Babayev assembled a motley team of volunteers using a social networking website and, after a few instructions from professionals, they began tending to fires.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised to build new, better homes before winter, and vowed each victim would receive $6,600 in compensation. The sum is huge in a country whose average monthly wage is around $800, and Russian media say some residents may have deliberately torched their dwellings to qualify.

To the east, firefighters focused on beating flames back from a top-secret nuclear research facility in the city of Sarov. A Sarov news website on Thursday cited local officials as saying a wall of fire had been broken down into several smaller blazes. On Wednesday, officials said the closest blaze was still several miles (kilometers) from the main facilities at the Russian Federal Nuclear Research Center and as a precaution all hazardous materials had been evacuated.

In the capital, President Dmitry Medvedev fired several high-ranking military officials Wednesday over what he called criminal negligence in fires that ravaged a military base.

Russia has been sent helicopters and planes to help douse the flames from Ukraine, Armenia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said in televised comments.

_____

Associated Press writers Mansur Mirovalev, Khristina Narizhnaya and David Nowak contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_ ... ssia_fires

Up to 200 planes! What could those be: Su-24, Ka-27s, or Tu-22M3s?

[Kanastrous]

I don't think the Navy adopted the Su-24, did they?

*edit* never mind, they did.

[CJvR]

Keeping soldiers terrified of their superiors is a time-honored method of maintaining discipline in the ranks. Though I'm guessing it's probably not the most effective one.

IIRC the nastier aspects of this problem originated from drafting outright criminals into the army. They brought some nasty prison tradition with them and since actually restraining them would simply mean throwing the lot back behind bars again the poison spread. The method of keeping troops terrified of their superiors was discredited in the Franco-Prussian war where the French revolutionary armies smashed the old Prussian style armies.

[montypython]

A horde of Be-200s would really be useful right now to fight this sort of blaze...

[folti78]

Keeping soldiers terrified of their superiors is a time-honored method of maintaining discipline in the ranks. Though I'm guessing it's probably not the most effective one.

IIRC the nastier aspects of this problem originated from drafting outright criminals into the army. They brought some nasty prison tradition with them and since actually restraining them would simply mean throwing the lot back behind bars again the poison spread.

That and/or some less then bright individuals who worked out their frustrations on the people they finally had some power over, when the officers were out of sight. It's quite telling how fast people could turn into dicks when they are no longer the underdogs. Been there, thank you.

Plus, if the Soviet armed forces worked similar to the Hungarian People's Army, where as long as you were "in", you were untouchable to the civilian law enforcement regarding your past crimes*, many criminals choosed to "serve further" after their conscript service ended. This added some more poison, as now, more of your immediate superiors were some shady people, with violent or sadistic tendencies sometimes.

* caught red handed was a different matter.

[Edward Yee]

Re: the firings -- would that be for the naval air base with all those lost planes, or another base??

[Eulogy]

Nothing puts a Frag Me sign on you like making your subordinates hate you. Machiavelli and all that.

With the Russian military that necrotic, it's only a matter of time before the powder keg goes boom.

[Vympel]

A wildfire leapt into a Russian naval air base outside Moscow last week, causing substantial damage; Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed.

That's already been debunked as nonsense, thankfully. I don't know where the media got that report - I think it was some bizarre game of Chinese whispers. I think an old storage / scrap yard might have been the catalyst for this silly story, I'm not sure.

EDIT: yeah, it was a Soviet boneyard. Also, the fire was quickly extinguished, not much was burned.

[[R_H]]

I recently attended a security briefing by the BND (public one) and they said that they now considered the malaise in Russia's armed forces as the number one threat to stability and safety in the east/Baltic/Atlantic.

In what sense? Selling of arms - or what?

[CaptainChewbacca]

I recently attended a security briefing by the BND (public one) and they said that they now considered the malaise in Russia's armed forces as the number one threat to stability and safety in the east/Baltic/Atlantic.

In what sense? Selling of arms - or what?

Not just selling arms. Drug trafficking, extortion, hell some units contract out as mercs to local criminals.

[Night_stalker]

Wow, appearantly Putin had to 'fire' (pardon the pun) some high ranking military personnel because they managed to loose a military base to the fire while doing nothing

Keep in mind that this is the same army that "lost" about a bataillon worth of tanks IIRC due to simply parking them somewhere and forgetting about them. They have some good units, but a lot is also substandard quality. I am sure somebody more familiar with this could elaborate more.

How does one LOSE a batallion of tanks? It just boggles the mind. Seriously though, what are the odds that the Russians can contain this fire, given they as far as I know lack the requisite firefighting equipment, and experience on a large enough scale?