"We have been seriously watching the situation of the severe forest fires in Siberia," he said, as cited by the Xinhua news agency. According to Soronzonbold, smoke from the wildfires came to northern Mongolia on Monday and reached the country’s capital of Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday night.

At the same time, the official pointed out that the fires had not yet spread to Mongolia.

A state of emergency is in effect in Russia’s Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk regions, as well as in two districts of the Buryatia region and one district in Yakutia. On Tuesday, Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexander Chupriyan arrived in the Krasnoyarsk region to control firefighting activities. According to him, a total of three mln hectares of forests are burning in Siberia and the Far East and fires continue to expand. Chupriyan pointed out that active forest fires posed no threat to residential areas and economic facilities though people were suffering from smoke. In this regard, the number of firefighters and emergency workers combating the blazes has been increased.