‘We have no strength left’ Russian forest firefighters plead for help, saying they’re exhausted, underpaid, and lack basic gear

In Russia’s Karelia region, a group of forest firefighters has gone public with a plea for help, describing exhausting work, meager pay, and a lack of basic equipment as they battle blazes that have burned for weeks. Their video message drew the attention of local officials, who pledged to investigate and improve conditions. Here’s what we know about the situation.

On August 7, a group of forest firefighters in Russia’s Karelia region posted a video message in which they complained of impossible working conditions and apologized to local residents for the fires they couldn’t put out, reported the outlet 7×7. Standing in their soot-stained gear, members of a local department of Russia’s Aerial Forest Protection Service described grueling work conditions, meager pay, and a lack of basic facilities and equipment, from showers to proper uniforms.

“On behalf of the paratrooper firefighters of the Petrozavodsk Aviation Unit, we apologize to all the residents of the Republic of Karelia for the burned land, the blueberries, and the forests,” one firefighter said. “We’re not to blame for this. Please, take your questions to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of Karelia. We’re doing everything we can, but we have almost no strength left.”

They said they earn just 35,000 rubles a month (about $440) and receive a per diem of only 300 rubles ($3.70) while deployed. “We go from fire to fire with no money. We have nowhere to change clothes, nowhere to wash. We have no building, no uniforms — we buy everything ourselves,” one firefighter said.

“We can’t go on. We have no strength left,” the firefighter continued. “Our wives are throwing us out of the house.” He said he had previously worked a different job in St. Petersburg, but had volunteered to help Karelia. “I thought I could help put out the forest. […] The Karelians need it, but your ministry doesn’t need it — half the forest has been cut down, and the other half has been burned.”

Yanina Svidskaya, Karelia’s natural resources minister, promised to take the matter under “personal control.” In a post on VKontakte, she wrote that she was aware of the firefighters’ dissatisfaction and understood them. Some of the issues raised in the video, she added, were already being addressed, such as buying uniforms, equipment, and supplies.

Svidskaya said she had ordered the head of Karelia’s forest protection service to meet with the workers and report back, and that she was ready to speak with them personally if necessary. “Our task is to do everything possible to create decent working conditions for the fighters who protect Karelia’s forests,” she wrote.

By the next day, Karelia’s prosecutor’s office announced an investigation, and the natural resources minister and Karelia’s governor, Artur Parfenchikov, met with the firefighters to discuss their living conditions, food, and equipment. “It’s a difficult period — the men have been in the forest for three weeks,” he wrote on social media, noting that while the fire situation was beginning to stabilize, it remained “quite serious,” with 136 blazes recorded in the past two weeks, many of them in remote areas.

As of the morning of August 9, the Aerial Forest Protection Service reported seven active wildfires in Karelia, covering a total of about 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres).

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