Russian helicopters arrive in France to fight forest fires
The two Russian helicopters dispatched to help fight forest fires in France have arrived in Marseille. At 1:30 p.m. Moscow time, "two Mi-26T helicopters of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry arrived in Marseille from Munich where they made a stopover. The ministry's specialists may begin putting out forest fires in France within the next few hours," Emergency Situations Ministry's spokesman Viktor Beltsov told Interfax on Saturday.
Each of the helicopters feature a 15-tonne water tank. "The water will be thrown on the areas where fires are raging," Beltsov noted.
The helicopters flew from the Ramenskoye air field in the Moscow region on Friday morning.
French authorities asked other countries for help in extinguishing forest fires in southern regions. Russia and France in October 1999 signed an inter-governmental agreement on cooperation in civil defense and prevention of emergencies.
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