“The preliminary damage from forest fires in 2021 amounted to 10.6 billion rubles.
Almost 15 thousand forest fires occurred on the lands of the forest fund on an area of over 10 million hectares, "Kozlova quotes TASS.
He also stressed that 2021 was a record year for the area covered by fire.
According to Kozlov, the Far East accounted for 90% of these territories, most of them covered Yakutia - 8.1 million hectares.
The press service of Rosleskhoz reported that in 2019 the damage amounted to over 13 billion rubles, in 2020 - about 11.5 billion rubles.
The minister said that two-thirds of the wildfires in Russia in 2021 were due to the human factor.