Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Shoigu, fires are presently the most topical issue in the field of disaster relief.

Sergei Shoigu: Mr Putin, there are two categories of fires in dwellings-those caused by negligence and those that are technogenic. The number of fires is reducing. Even more importantly, fire-related deaths rates have been going down for five years. The number of fires reduced by 10.8% and victims, by 10.2%-almost a thousand lives-in the last four months alone.

As for forest and other conflagrations, the new Forest Code has shifted the bulk of responsibility onto municipal and other local authorities. The number of countryside fires grows every spring, especially with weekend hikes and picnics.

67 buildings were destroyed by fires in eight constituent entities during the weekends between April 27 and May 6. A portion of those houses were inhabited, and the other either deserted or non-residential.

The acting legislation does not stipulate participation by federal troops, police, and firemen in fire-fighting, though it is increasingly indispensable. I intend to ask you for relevant allocations out of the Government's emergency reserve.

Much is being done on the legislative level to cut the number of fires. New technical regulations took effect on May 1 to reduce the number of mutually contradictory rules from 150,000 to 1,500, and the number of relevant licensable activities from 8 to 2.

What matters most is an order you made two years ago concerning safety audits. 30 companies have been checked this year. It is quite a new form of inspection. I hope it will be bribe-proof, due to its independence as stipulated by the law.

Naturally, our machinery is developing, too. I want to show you cutting-edge equipment today, which has recently won a Government award for new technologies. It is a fire alarm system for hospitals and limited-abilities people's homes.

This is a hospital model. Mr Putin, would you like to play the role of a doctor or a patient for the test?

Vladimir Putin: I would like to be the doctor and you, the patient.

Sergei Shoigu: All right. Here is a bracelet. Patients with impaired hearing and those who take sleeping drugs put on such bracelets for the night. It is a two-way contraption. When patients have to be alerted, we press this button. Vibration, sound, and light signals reach both of us simultaneously, within a distance of 500 metres. When a patient feels bad or spots danger, he presses the button on his bracelet, and the signal reaches the doctor. You will get it now.

Vladimir Putin: Is the signaller identified?

Sergei Shoigu: Yes, here is the room number and the name. The signal also reaches the fire squad on duty immediately. The system is foolproof. It cuts the number of failures a thousand times. Furthermore, it is a wireless contraption, which makes it convenient.

Last but not least, it neutralises the human-error factor. The gauges are mounted on all locks. When a nurse shirks her duties, she can walk only along the corridor-she cannot enter any room unless she is wearing the bracelet.

Vladimir Putin: Who has designed it?

Sergei Shoigu: The Strelets system was designed in Russia. Institutes formerly in the military-industrial complex took part. I think it is a breakthrough in safety equipment. Please help to implement it everywhere by making the Education and Health ministries include it in their priority programmes.
Vladimir Putin: We will certainly do so. It is really necessary, especially after the tragic fires of the last several months and even years. The bracelets will surely come in handy in medical and educational establishments.