Russian authorities say that deadly wildfires have burned nearly 7,000 hectares as hot, dry weather
kindles fears less than a year after peat-bog and forest fires devastated the country, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
More than 118 fires were said to be burning on May 28, with around 150 already extinguished.
Sixty-two deaths have been blamed on the blazes, and more than 3,000 homes have been burned, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
The danger was said to be most acute in the regions of Sakha, Amur, Primorsky, and Krasnoyarsk.
Russian authorities were caught off-guard last summer by wildfires that ravaged the country amid a heat wave,
killing dozens of people,
wiping out entire communities, and even paralyzing life in the
smoke-choked capital, Moscow.