OREANDA-NEWS The Mi-8 helicopters of the Russian Ministry of Defense began to extinguish natural fires in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Irkutsk Region, daily they will perform from 10 to 15 sorties, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Friday.

Fire extinguishing is carried out by helicopters equipped with VSU-5 spillway devices with a capacity of 5 tons. Previously, army helicopter crews of the Central and Eastern military districts were relocated to operational airfields.

In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, an aviation group of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation was created, which will help to extinguish forest fires, it included 10 Il-76 aircraft of the Military Transport Aviation and the same number of Mi-8 helicopters of army aviation.

In the Irkutsk region, according to the regional GU Ministry of Emergency Situations on Friday morning, there are 136 natural fires on an area of ​​719.4 thousand ha, ten of them are localized on an area of ​​12.7 thousand ha.

The day before it was reported that the aviation of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation extinguished fires in the Krasnoyarsk Territory over an area of ​​23 thousand hectares.

"All helicopters involved in extinguishing fires are equipped with VSU-5 spillway devices with a capacity of 5 tons," the report says.