MOSCOW, Aug. 4 -- The aviation force of the Russian Defense Ministry has managed to extinguish forest fires on an area of 753,000 hectares in the Krasnoyark and Irkutsk regions in Russia's Siberia in the last four days, the ministry said Sunday.
The aviation group of the Russian Defense Ministry has dumped about 6,000 tons of water onto the forested areas covered by fire since the beginning of the operation, and wildfires on about 303,000 hectares of forests were extinguished on Sunday alone, a ministry statement said.
Il-76 military transport airplanes and Mi-8 helicopters of the Russian Defense Ministry have been involved in the operation for extinguishing the wildfires, according to the statement.
Russia has declared a state of emergency in forests in four regions of Siberia and the Far East over mass wildfires.
According to Wednesday's data from the Russian Aerial Forest Protection Service, fires were raging on nearly 3 million hectares in Russia.