MOSCOW — A Russian military garrison near Moscow moved all its artillery rockets to a safer location as wildfires advanced in the region, the government said Thursday.
Col. Alexei Kuznetsov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press that the garrison near Naro-Fominsk, 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Moscow, was not in immediate danger. But the decision to move the explosive materiel underlined the challenges posed by the hundreds of fires raging in Russia after weeks of intense heat and drought.
A wildfire leapt into a Russian naval air base outside Moscow last week, causing substantial damage; Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed. Kuznetsov did not give details of where the rockets were moved to, or when the operation occurred.
In neighboring Ukraine, also suffering from heat and lack of rain, a wildfire on Thursday was within three kilometers (two miles) of a military base in the Dnirpropetrovsk region, local news reports said. The regional emergencies ministry said only that a 300-hectare (750-acre) fire was close to being extinguished. In all, wildfires in eastern Ukraine have destroyed about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres).
Almost 600 fires were reported burning in Russia on Thursday, mostly in the western stretches of the country. The death toll from the fires stands at 50.
Earlier, a shelter with some 1,800 animals near Moscow reported that it had been threatened by fires and that one had approached within 150 meters (yards) before being extinguished. But shelter director Daria Taraskina said late Thursday that there were no blazes nearby, though concern remained high for the dogs, cats and retired circus animals at the facility in Khoteichi, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Moscow. Associated Press
