During the meeting, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reported that families impacted by the fires will receive 100,000 roubles per family member from the federal budget plus matching funds from regional budgets.

In addition, the government will pay to rebuild the victims' homes. Mr Putin said the government will base payments on "the market value of a square metre of housing," which works out to approximately three million roubles per house.

Mr Putin also demanded that all victims be provided with adequate accommodations, food and transport. He also ordered that each person receive 10,000 roubles to cover current expenses.

Mr Putin said that the heads of municipalities in the regions hit by forest fires must resign if local residents are dissatisfied with their handling of the emergency. He also advised governors to set up working groups and headquarters to provide rapid assistance to people in need.

Mr Putin announced that the government will set up an ad hoc group for every region to monitor the response to the wildfires and the payment of compensation. 

Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon once again. It is common knowledge that abnormally high temperatures have been present all over Russia since the beginning of the summer. In all, there have been 21,692 fires in this country, or 10% more than last year during the same period.

We have already examined this issue and discussed the situation. At that time, I heard that the situation was under control. Indeed, fires now cover an area two times smaller than last year. However, this does not help the people who have been affected by the fires in any way. I don't think that everything has been done in order to minimise the dire consequences of the fires.

The situation was aggravated on Thursday and remains extremely complicated in 14 constituent entities: the Lipetsk, Voronezh, Tula, Tambov, Belgorod, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Ryazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk and Kirov Regions, as well as the Republics of Mordovia and Tatarstan. The situation in these regions has become strained, and we must pass a number of urgent decisions today.

First, we must intensify our efforts and contribute additional effort and resources to fight forest fires.

Second, we must promptly and effectively aid individuals who have lost their homes and private property.

What must be done in order to rebuild homes? And what will be done in order to accomplish this objective? Constituent entities will receive the required funds from the federal budget for this purpose. I would like to stress that we will proceed from the market value of one square metre of floor space. On average, this will mean 100 sq m homes, depending on the categories of homes and the property lost. Considering prices in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, where we are staying today, I would like to stress once again that a home will cost about two million roubles plus another million roubles for restoring the damaged infrastructure, power lines and, where necessary, gas supply. A gas pipeline must be built in the community we visited today, which had burned down completely.

Consequently, each household will receive about three million roubles.

Third, we must compensate for the loss of personal property. Under the law currently in force, the amount of compensation is set at 50,000 roubles, which is not much. Considering the extent of the damage and the scale of this disaster, compensation for the loss of personal property must be considerably increased. All members of affected families will receive 100,000 roubles from the federal budget, as well as another 100,000 roubles out of the regional budget. As a result, each family member will get 200,000 roubles.

Fourth, we must provide normal living conditions, food and transport for all affected individuals and allocate 10,000 roubles per person without delay. I have talked to the people here and you have witnessed this. The people have lost everything! The men and women only have the clothing that they are wearing. They have nothing else.

Here is another point that I would like to make. I am asking regional leaders who are now listening to us and those present here not to drown this problem in red tape. Some people have managed to draw up all the required deeds confirming ownership of their burnt-down homes. At the same time, some of them, including a man who approached me in front of this building, failed to do this. Well, these things happen.

Naturally, we must prevent others from posing as wildfire victims. However, all affected individuals must be reimbursed, regardless of whether they had drawn up the relevant documents on time or not. I would like to ask you once again to avoid red tape in dealing with this problem.

I have to mention one more thing, though it sounds sad. The families of the deceased will be paid a million roubles for every deceased relative.

I would like to make two more remarks in conclusion. Judging by popular attitudes, I advise the leaders of municipalities who are obviously not trusted by the public to resign. The governors must establish working groups and command centres headed by their deputies. The latter must conduct all urgent work to aid the public and to rebuild the housing that has been destroyed.

Security agencies are conducting a thorough investigation and will assess the work of every official.

Incidentally, this does not rule out the fact that some local government officials can take part in elections in line with the law. If it is clear that they are working efficiently, then it would be possible to include them in these command centres. It is the people who must have the right to choose.

Let's assess the current situation. Mr Valery Shantsev has the floor once again.

Valery Shantsev: On May 5 we had to raise the fire danger level to ‘high' and on July 1 to ‘severe' because of the large number of fires that had broken out. A total of 1,258 forest fires have been reported so far. We have mobilised all our resources and manpower to contain them.

We had the situation under control throughout July, but on July 25 it grew worse in the Vyksa District. Several fires broke out in that area, some of which originated in the Ryazan Region and others started locally.

We deployed resources and manpower based on expert estimations. When the situation intensified, we had to employ additional resources and manpower, including heavy machinery and recently formed firefighting brigades. I requested 400 soldiers from the Ministry of Defence - they've also been working here - as well as heavy machinery, including artillery tractors and trenchers. A day before the emergency began I requested an Ilyushin Il-76 jet, which has proved very effective.

These measures allowed us to keep the fire from spreading to villages and towns. But in the afternoon of July 28 the wind picked up and fanned the fires. Wind speed reached 15 m/s. We had mineralised several forest areas, but fire started spreading to the forest's upper level.

Within the last 24 hours we have used 308 pieces of equipment and 780 people. They were deployed to different areas based on advice from specialists. We have calculations and reports telling us which resources were used and when.

Unfortunately, we were unable to save seven villages from fire. The situation is especially severe in the villages of Verkhnyaya Vereya and Borkovka. In Borkovka, 120 out of 503 houses have burned down, we were able to save the rest. The entire village of Verkhnyaya Vereya has been destroyed, as you saw, because fire spread to the forest's upper level, and it was big fire, almost impossible to put out.

As far as smaller villages, in some of them eight out of nine houses have burned down. In total, 550 houses were lost, leaving 1,100 people homeless. A total of 1,489 people were evacuated. Initially, they were evacuated to the town of Vyksa, the closest town to the villages on fire. They were placed in shelters in schools and received hot meals. However, it's difficult to create normal living conditions for people in a school building, so we had to cancel the shift in the summer camp Lazurny, eight kilometres from here, and send 194 people, including 40 children, there. They have beds and receive hot meals regularly. The summer camp has an infirmary with doctors and nurses. We have provided infants with everything they need.

Some people from the destroyed villages are staying with relatives, but we have already announced we can accommodate another 500 people at the steelworkers' community centre. We have set up an ad hoc group to find out who lost what property in the fire and what documents people have to open banking accounts and deposit the 10,000 roubles they were provided with today, as you instructed. In the future, we'll deposit the rest of the money to reimburse people for lost property.

We've also set up an emergency centre in Nizhny Novgorod to prepare the documentation necessary to build new houses. There are quite a few contractors in our region that have proved to be quite good at home construction. We're now distributing orders among these companies to construct 550 houses. These houses must be completely ready by November 1, the start of the heating season. However, some people have asked us to preserve their villages. We'll see whether we can bring new soil here and replant this area and restore what has been destroyed. We'll probably have to relocate some villages. Some people are unwilling to stay in these villages - we'll have to discuss it with everyone in person.

We have only one request regarding construction. We have a very large programme for relocating people from dilapidated housing. We'd like you to make an exception and give instructions on extending this programme so that we can complete it by April 2011 instead of December 2010, as we will be very busy restoring these plots.

We've decided to provide each person with 100,000 roubles to compensate them for lost property. Moreover, we'll take additional measures regarding social protection and recuperation on an individual basis - related to both medical treatment and work. We will provide people with transport so they can get to work from Lazurny and back. Together with the plant's management and the municipality we will help these people with all their problems, not just housing and money. Their children should be ready to go to school by September 1, or to kindergartens, in addition to a whole host of other social problems that we must resolve. At the same time, we must think about how to organise for permanent accommodations until we can build new houses, but we'll do that after Lazurny, when everything settles down there.

We set up headquarters for this a long time ago. My deputy, Vladimir Lebedev, was in charge of all fire prevention efforts. He directed the headquarters right from here. The headquarters were in Nizhny Novgorod, and they were in constant contact with federal agencies. I'm grateful to everyone. Now we are accused of having refused assistance at some point. But in reality we were asking for assistance and receiving it. I have spoken about planes both with Sergei Shoigu and Viktor Zubkov.

Vladimir Putin: Why couldn't you save these villages? We've seen what happened to Verkhnyaya Vereya - it looks like something out of a horror movie.

Valery Shantsev: But you've seen how the fire approached. It jumped over a 200-metre-wide lake. Specialists say the whirlwind blew embers one and a half to two kilometres from its centre. We tried to fight the creeping fire, to break it up into smaller pockets, we dug fire lines, we tried to stop it with backfire, but all our efforts came to naught once the crown fire started.

Vladimir Putin: I'd like to hear from the acting governor of the Voronezh Region. Is he on the line? Mr Ganov, what can you tell us?

Alexander Ganov: The situation deteriorated rapidly on July 29. In one day we recorded 20 active fire zones with a total area of 3,200 hectares. We also had to deal with a fire storm. We have contained and extinguished all but three fires.

Yesterday we actively built up our forces. We've practically doubled our group since the emergency forces were introduced. Now we have up to 3,000 people and 500 pieces of equipment.

We have determined our reserves and can supply additional people and equipment in two hours. As a result of these recent measures, the situation has been stabilised, but let me emphasise that it remains difficult.

All in all, 15 settlements on the territory of six municipal entities have been affected. The suburbs of Voronezh were the hardest hit. I am referring to the Kozhevenny Cordon and the village of Maslovka. Work is underway there now.

As of this morning, the fire destroyed 271 homes. Sadly, there has been loss of life as well. Five people were killed in the fire, including one firefighter.

In our response to this emergency, we are focusing our efforts on protecting people, containing and putting out fires and preventing them from spreading to the nuclear power station and other strategic facilities.

The Emergencies Ministry has approved our plan of action, and we are in contact with the ministry round the clock.

Vladimir Putin: Mr Ganov, where are you sending people who have lost their homes?

Alexander Ganov: This is what we've decided. We have evacuated 15 summer camps because many of them are located in the forest zone adjacent to the regional centre.

We have returned all the children to their parents. We've managed to do this in a timely manner, plus we've decided to shut down all recreation camps since the state of emergency was declared.

We have reserved beds in medical facilities. We had to evacuate three medical centres - 521 people. Now we have extra beds. In addition, we have evacuated recreation facilities near active fire zones.

We have no problem with accommodating people. They have been provided with hotel rooms or went to stay with relatives. We have more rooms in the city district and all municipal entities.

Vladimir Putin: Will you be able to build new housing before the winter?

Alexander Ganov: Every victim will be provided with housing, by all means.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you. Now I would like to address the heads of the regions affected by the fires. I've already named them, and almost all of them are with us now. Assistance must be provided in every region I've mentioned in the amounts I've indicated - in every region.

As for immovable property, every region, as I said, will receive 3 million roubles on average from the federal budget for housing construction. The amount may vary slightly depending on the types of houses the victims had.

I'm also asking that you provide compensation for movable property. We will set aside 100,000 roubles from the federal budget per family member, and I'm asking you to provide matching funds, 100,000 roubles, from regional budgets. If necessary, we will provide you with budget-to-budget assistance.

The most important thing is to rebuild houses by winter. Please begin work on this immediately. The process involves lots of bureaucracy, and we need to get through it as quickly as possible. If you need any government support, we are prepared to help and take the necessary decisions. We need to begin work now. Mr Shoigu, you have the floor.

Sergei Shoigu: As of this moment, 1,170 homes have been destroyed, leaving 2,178 people homeless. In total, the firefighting effort currently includes 238,000 people, 25,000 pieces of equipment and 226 aircraft. EMERCOM units from the Urals Federal District have been deployed in the Central and Volga federal districts. We also have some reserve forces in Krasnoyarsk and in the country's Far East. We are also considering deploying units from the Siberian Federal District.

Here are some issues that require your decisions and instructions, Mr Putin. First, I have asked you to instruct various agencies in charge of facilities, especially potentially hazardous ones, in the Central and Volga federal districts to make every effort to protect them. I'm referring, first and foremost, to the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, the Ministry of Energy and the main facilities of the Ministry of Transport.

Second, the situation in some regions remains rather difficult, and we need to ensure prompt coordination and redeployment of both human and technical resources. So, we should either give the Federal Forestry Agency greater coordinating authority or include the agency in the operations headquarters and coordinate work via the National Crisis Management Centre.

Third, based on the forecasts we have now - and I've already raised this possibility with you, Mr Prime Minister - we might soon need additional resources. Most importantly, we will need more fuel for the shelters, which we will have to take from our reserves. That concludes my report.

Vladimir Putin: I have reviewed the table. The situation is tough in all the regions I've mentioned, especially the Ryazan Region, where 126 homes have been destroyed, and the Voronezh Region, where 217 homes have been destroyed. We have a lot of work to do. We will set up an ad hoc group within the government to oversee work in each region. Let's get down to work.