One dead, 18 injured in forest fires in Russia

One person has died and 18 people were injured in forest fires in Russia's Chelyabinsk region in the Ural Mountains, the state news agency Ria Novosti reported on Saturday, citing the authorities.

Earlier, the fires had spread to several villages. Dozens of houses were destroyed and around 180 people were brought to safety. By the evening, according to official figures, all fires over 20 hectares were under control.

A total of 316 forest fires were raging in Russia, according to the authorities.

More than 7,000 people were involved in firefighting operations on Saturday.

The Siberian region of Yakutia was particularly hard hit. There, almost 440,000 hectares of forest were in flames.

The environmental organization Greenpeace classified the situation as very serious.

Every year in the largest country on Earth in terms of surface area, with its taiga forest belt that is important for the climate, huge areas of tree cover go up in flames.

In Yakutia alone, about 6 million hectares of forest burnt down last year out of a total area of 256 million hectares.

Forest experts from Greenpeace complain that the situation with the fires has worsened because of climate change.