David Tonoyan: RA Ministry of Emergency Situations was not late with  the request and acted adequately to situation 

ArmInfo.The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Armenia was not late with a request for assistance in the work on extinguishing a fire in the Khosrov forest of EMERCOM of Russia and acted adequately the situation. This was stated by the head of the department David Tonoyan on August 24 during a briefing, answering the question why Russian colleagues were involved in fire fighting only on the third day of the fire.

According to David Tonoyan, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of  Armenia reacted immediately, the environmental programs were also  implemented adequately. "To this day, employees of the Ministry of  Nature Protection are working on the reserve's territory, rescuers  are struggling to save every plant and tree," he said.

Answering the question why the Ministry of Emergency Situations of  Armenia did not previously apply to the EMERCOM of Russia for the  Il-76 plane, Tonoyan noted: "They did not apply earlier, because the  situation assessment did not allow for such a plane, but when the  fire swept the forest, But not the grass cover, we immediately  appealed to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian  Federation."

The head of the Armenian Ministry of Emergency Situations urged not  to forget that, in military terms, they acted on two fronts." "Two  days in a row, the work was carried out both in the Khosrov Forest  and forests near the Artavan village in the Vayots Dzor region of  Armenia. Of course, the available technical means - all-terrain  vehicles and helicopters provided to the aircraft, did not allow to  react accordingly. There were also difficulties due to the difficult  terrain and strong wind. Some conclusions and proposals have been  made in the direction of increasing the equipment of the MoES, which  are presented to the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and Prime  Minister Karen Karapetyan," he said.

At the same time, as David Tonoyan noted, in order to increase the  equipment of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the government  periodically provides funds, assistance is also provided in the  framework of international grant programs. For example, as the  Minister indicated, Yerevan uses fire trucks that are provided by  Japan under the grant program. "This is the situation today, but we  are doing everything to improve the level of technical equipment of  the department," he said.

To recall, in Armenia, on August 10, violent fires broke out in the  forests of Vayots Dzor and a unique Khosrov Reserve in the Ararat  region. The fire was extinguished only a week later thanks to the  help of Russian aviators and rainy weather. As the Minister of Nature  Protection of Armenia Artsvik Minasyan pointed out, 250 hectares were  damaged from the total territory of the Khosrov Forest Reserve in  1600 hectares. "The size of the assay will be refined after comparing  the data from several sources. We assure that we will not hide  anything, there is no such problem," he said. Meanwhile, independent  experts say that in reality about 2.5 thousand hectares of forest  were burnt. The signal about the fire in the state reserve "Khosrov  Forest" in the Rescue Service of the Ministry of Emergency Measures  of the Republic of Armenia was received on 12 August at 12:30. And  only on August 14, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Armenia,  being unable to fight the fire on its own, had to turn to Russian  colleagues for help.  On the same day at 19.20 the Il-76 special  plane of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia arrived in Armenia to  participate in an operation to extinguish fires that took  unprecedented proportions in the mountains of Armenia. In this  regard, there were doubts in the society about the adequacy of the  actions of the Ministry of Emergency Measures and the Ministry of  Nature Protection.