6 august 2012

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signs a list of instructions following a conference call On the Situation in the Russian Regions Affected by Abnormally High Temperatures in 2012, held on July 27, 2012

1. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi) and the Russian Forestry Agency (Viktor Maslyakov) are instructed to provide control over wildfires in Russian regions, and to continue implementing the inter-regional plan of managing firefighting units and equipment.

Deadline: August 15, 2012.   

They are also instructed to work on issues of wildfire registration and damage evaluation.

Deadline: September 24, 2012.

2. The Russian Forestry Agency (Viktor Maslyakov) is instructed, jointly with the Krasnoyarsk Territory government, to urgently review and settle the issue of sending an additional firefighting team of airborne paratroopers to the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Deadline: August 10, 2012

3. The Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief (Vladimir Puchkov) is instructed to take under his personal control additional measures on dealing with dense smoke and haze in Tomsk; to organise, jointly with regional executive bodies, extra oversight measures on implementing fire security requirements in localities and on farms bordering on forests; and to check the installation of wildfire warning systems and their operation.  

Deadline: August 15, 2012

4. The Ministry of Finance (Anton Siluanov), the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi) and the Russian Forestry Agency (Viktor Maslyakov) are instructed to review and settle the issue of regional debts for fighting wildfires in 2011.

Deadline: September 3, 2012

5. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi), the Ministry of Finance (Anton Siluanov), the Ministry of Economic Development (Andrei Belousov) and the Russian Forestry Agency (Viktor Maslyakov) are instructed to work on the issue of an additional federal budget allocation for increasing the number of firefighting airborne paratroopers in Russian regions up to 5,900 starting in 2013. 

Deadline: September 3, 2012

6. The Military-Industrial Commission at the Government of the Russian Federation (Dmitry Rogozin), the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Denis Manturov), the Ministry of Defence (Anatoly Serdyukov) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yuri Osipov) are instructed to work on issues of the optional use of modern technology on detecting wildfire hotbeds and providing for wildfire suppression under conditions of poor visibility and dense haze and smoke.

Deadline: September 24, 2012

7. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi), the Ministry of Finance (Anton Siluanov), the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief (Vladimir Puchkov) and the Russian Forestry Agency (Viktor Maslyakov) are instructed to prepare, with the participation of the interested executive bodies and underwriter associations, the proposals on mandatory life and health insurance of aircraft observers and paratroopers detecting and suppressing wildfires.

8. The Ministry of Healthcare (Veronika Skvortsova), jointly with regional executive bodies and local governments, is instructed to ensure an adequate ambient temperature in medical and preventive treatment facilities in periods of abnormally high temperatures.

9. The Ministry of Transport (Maxim Sokolov) and the Ministry of Defence (Anatoly Serdyukov) are instructed to work jointly with RZD [Russian Railways] and the Trans-Baikal Territory on transporting mobile spray trucks discharged by the Armed Forces from the Far Eastern Federal District to the Trans-Baikal Territory.

10. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi) is instructed to work in conjunction with interested executive bodies on problematic issues concerning the Ishim River water level, and to report personally. 

Deadline: August 20, 2012

11. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi), the Russian Forestry Agency (Viktor Maslyakov) and the Voluntary Association for Assistance to the Army, Air Force and Navy, DOSAAF (Sergei Mayev), are instructed to work jointly with interested executive bodies on the issues of training paratroopers for the forestry, and for using DOSAAF facilities for suppressing wildfires.

Deadline: September 17, 2012

12. The Ministry of Finance (Anton Siluanov), the Ministry of Economic Development (Andrei Belousov), the Ministry of Regional Development (Oleg Govorun), the Ministry of Labour and Social Security (Maxim Topilin) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (Sergei Donskoi) are instructed to work jointly with interested executive bodies and underwriter associations -- taking into account earlier instructions -- on creating a system of mandatory insurance for individual and corporate property against losses caused by natural disasters, and submit proposals to the Russian government under the established procedure.

Deadline: October 1, 2012

13. The Ministry of Agriculture (Nikolai Fyodorov) is instructed, during the period until September 1, 2012 to hold conference calls at least twice a week on problematic issues in agriculture caused by drought; to prepare and submit within two weeks to the Russian government the proposals on comprehensive support of farmers under adverse weather conditions.

14. The Governor of the Tomsk Region (Sergei Zhvachkin) is instructed to take under his personal control the issues of flight security at the Tomsk Airport within the period of the emergency situation.

15. Regional executive bodies are instructed:

to provide for a reliable wildfire warning system;

to provide for prompt wildfire detection and suppression to stabilise the situation with wildfires in regions;

to increase personnel and equipment to localise and suppress wildfires according to standard requirements and uniform procedures for suppressing wildfires;

to ensure control over implementing the decisions on wildfires taken by regional commissions for emergency situations at the level of municipal entities;

to ensure the timely introduction of a special firefighting regime and an emergency situation regime in forests, and implementation of the aforementioned regimes by state bodies, local governments and the population;

to ensure the timely introduction of a special firefighting regime on the territories of urban and rural communities;

to ensure the implementation of additional fire protection measures in children’s health resorts, other social sector facilities located beyond the borders of populated areas;

to request, in a timely manner, federal aviation to prevent wildfires from spreading to populated areas and important economic facilities, as well as to localise and suppress large wildfires;

to intensify the work on improving public awareness of fire security.