Voronezh, Russia (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of firefighters are battling a series of wildfires that have claimed the lives of 48 people, the nation's Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday.
But the overall fire situation might be improving. On Wednesday, the total of 246 fires were burning, down from about 1,200 over the weekend.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet with firefighters in Voronezh on Wednesday.
During an earlier visit to Nizhny Novgorod, Putin called on local officials to step down because they had been accused of a "chaotic and uncoordinated" response.
Putin has said the families of those who died in wildfires would each receive 1 million rubles ($33,000) in compensation. He also said the government would allocate around 3 million rubles ($100,000) to rebuild the destroyed homes.
Earlier this week, Russian authorities imposed a state of emergency for about 500 towns and villages because of the wildfires burning across the west of the country.
The most serious situation was on the outskirts of the town of Sarov in the Nizhny Novgorod region. CNN
