Russia mobilises Siberian convicts to help combat forest fires

Russia has mobilised gangs of prison convicts to help fight forest fires burning out of control and destroying critical power lines, officials said Tuesday. Blazes in the Irkutsk district of central Siberia had cut power lines and left more than 20,000 people without electricity, said Evgeny Belsky, a government spokesman.
Dozens of convicts held at prisons in the region had been assigned to civilian work teams sent to repair the damage, he continued. Most people cut off from power lived in seven towns along the Agara River, some 900 kilometres to the north of Lake Baikal, according to news reports. Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations in a Tuesday statement said that 11 major fires were burning nation-wide. The most likely cause in all cases, officials said, was lightning strike.