MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry is dispatching a special air group to the Krasnoyarsk Region to extinguish wildfires in accordance with instructions issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the ministry reported on Wednesday.

"In accordance with instructions issued by Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Russian Defense Minister, General of the Army Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu, ordered to create an air group to help extinguish forest fires in the Krasnoyarsk Region," the ministry said.

According to the Defense Ministry, ten Il-76 aircraft and 10 helicopters of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ military transport aviation equipped with special water discharge devices will leave for Krasnoyarsk within the next few hours.

The task force battling wildfires in Krasnoyarsk Region consists of nearly 800 people and 400 pieces of equipment, the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s press service told TASS.

"Now 381 patrol groups are working in the Krasnoyarsk Region, bringing together 771 people and 381 pieces of equipment. The firefighting effort also involves the Beriev Be-200 amphibious aircraft, which has poured 63 tonnes of water on the fire hotbeds," the ministry said.

A Mi-8 helicopter, which is currently operating in four villages in the Evenk autonomous district, is also used for sending rescuers. An airmobile task force of the Emergencies Ministry, consisting of 46 personnel and six pieces of equipment, is also working in the area.

Wildfires are currently raging across Taymyr, Evenk, Boguchansky, Kezhemsky, Yeniseysky, Motyginsky and Abansky districts of the Krasnoyarsk Region.

On Tuesday, Russian First Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexander Chupriyan arrived in the Krasnoyarsk Region to oversee the firefighting effort. He convened the ministry’s board meeting and attended a session of the regional government’s emergencies commission.

Earlier, Chupriyan said some 3 mln hectares of the taiga in Siberia and the Far East were blazing and this area was growing. He stressed that the current wildfires did not pose any threat to the settlements and economic facilities, but people were suffering from smoke. A decision was made to extend Russia’s firefighting task force.

A state of emergency over wildfires has been declared across the entire territory of Siberia’s Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk regions, two districts of Buryatia and one district of Yakutia.