Two military transport aircraft Il-76, participating in the elimination of a fire on the territory of the Mordovian State Nature Reserve, dropped more than 210 tons of water on the flames during the day. Their crews flew to dangerous areas five times. This was reported on Monday in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
"In just five days, 22 flights of Il-76 aircraft were carried out and 924 tons of water were dropped on fire centers in a given area," the ministry informed.
Mordovia is far from the only Russian region where military aviation helps to fight natural disasters. The Ministry of Defense recalled that according to the decision of the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu, Il-76 army transport vehicles equipped with special 42-ton aircraft discharge devices are still flying to extinguish fires in the Orenburg and Irkutsk regions, as well as Yakutia.
In Orenburg region, over the past day, military transport planes were sent three times to the places of flame spread in the area of the settlement of Kuvandyk. There they dumped 126 tons of water on the land covered by fire. "In two days, 210 tons of water were dropped by VTA planes on the fire centers in this region," the military department reported.
Yuri Gavrilov
