Russia Continues to Fight Wildfires Amid Souring Heatwave

Emergency services fought to control expanding blazes in the countryside in the hope of preventing a repeat of the devastating wildfires of last year, as the abnormally hot summer was sweltering on Thursday in Russia.

With Temperatures souring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) for the last few days, weather forecasters have said that the central city Volgograd is even hotter than New delhi, Tashkent, Cario and Tehran.

Residents of the former Stalingrad, scene of the brutal World War II battle against the Nazis, have been issued with repeated heat alerts from the local officials, warning them that the tropical heat is expected to rise up to 43 degrees C (109.4 F) on Thursday.

For a third day in a row, the cities temperature has exceeded 40 degrees. fobos weather forecasting service said “The courage and tenacity of the residents of Volgograd, has got the admiration of the world”

Last year, dozens of people were killed, thousands of houses burned down, and nuclear and military installations were threatened when wildfires spread out of control as Russia endured the worst heatwave in it’s recorded history.

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Though, not as severe, and in what appears to be a warning, Russia has been struggling with the new heatwave for the past week.

According to Fobos forecasters, there is an expected spike of temperature of between 33 and 35 degrees C (91.4 and 95 F) in Moscow. Central Russia is expected to have it’s last day of suffocating heat on Thursday.

Leonid Starkov, a Fobos meteorologist is reported as saying “Friday should begin to see an abate in the heatwave”

Moscow experienced it’s hottest day since the start of the year on Wednesday, with the temperature reaching 33.6 degrees C (92.5 F).

Fobos said “The weather in many ways is reminiscent as the one last year, noting that the heat was not as intense.” To compare, on July 27, 2010, the temperatures stood at 35.7 degrees C (96.3 F).

The emergencies ministry said in the past day day, more than 21,500 hectares of land was covered by blazes, meaning they had grown by 3,00 hectares (7,500 acres) as hot air was fanning the wildfires.

The continued number of fires burning across Russia was down from 220  to 192 registered on Wednesday.

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Russian buildings and subways are ill equipped to cope with the extreme temperatures, as most of them still date from the soviet era.

A 47 year old died of a heart attack, as ambulances made almost 40 trips to the metro on Monday and Tuesday as the Moscow subway exceeded permissible temperature levels, reported the mass circulation newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The noxious smog that enveloped Moscow last summer, was predicted to return in a warning by environmental campaigners earlier this year, but so far, there has been no sign or detection of it around the city so far.

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There is at least one industry in Russia looking to cash in on the heat wave, as Russians pray for rain and take shelter in air conditioned offices.

Deputy director of the Union of Russian Ice Cream Makers, Gennady Yashin said, “There is a 10 percent jump on the average month in the consumption of ice cream during such hot days.”

Predictions have been made by the trade industry group that between 330 and 340 tonnes of ice cream will be gobbled up by Muscovite’s by the end of the month, this will be up from Junes consumption of 319 tonnes.

Yashin also said “That is still along way off from the 380 tonnes of ice cream consumed in one month in Moscow, which broke all records.”