From PTI:
Moscow: The US offered to supply fire-fighting equipment to Russia to help deal with continuing wildfires and peat bog fires caused by abnormally hot weather as President Barack Obama spoke to his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev over phone.
During the telephonic conversation with Medvedev last night, Obama expressed condolences at the loss of life and concern at the disastrous environmental situation in Central Russia caused by raging forest and peat bog fires.
“Obama reiterated the US readiness to supply the necessary fire-fighting equipment and render expert assistance,” a Kremlin release said.
Earlier, an expert team from the US visited Moscow to look at the possibility of US assistance in Russia’s fire-fighting operations already joined by several CIS and European countries.
Thousands of emergency workers and military personnel have been working round the clock for almost three weeks to fight fires in 22 Russian regions, which have so far killed more than 50 people and left over 3,500 homeless.
Meanwhile, satellite monitoring showed a significant drop in the number of wildfire hot spots on the Russian territory with only 359 registered yesterday, according to the ScanEx website that receives information from two NASA satellites.
Kudos FINALLY – why did it take so long to happen – the fires have been burning for two weeks. That’s a long time – we should have been there fighting fires no more than a week after they started.
US Forestry can handle this !