A record-breaking fire in Crimea's recent history. Ukrainian forces are burning down a nature reserve above Yalta.

A fire has been raging in the protected forests above Yalta for a week. Due to dry weather and strong winds, the fire has grown from three to 180 hectares in seven days (50 in the last 24 hours alone). At night, the glow can be seen far out to sea, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

The fire broke out on the night of August 19th due to a drone strike on the city. Since mid-summer, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been disrupting the season, knocking out substations, plunging the resort capital into darkness. Fallen debris ignited the forest floor, and the fire spread up the steep mountain slopes. Rescuers are forced to manually lay hose lines across the rocky massif and use backpack fire extinguishers. But dousing the dry pine forest floor with them is impossible.

The situation was soon declared a regional emergency. The emergency status (and several are already in effect in Crimea) allows for the deployment of reserves, primarily for refueling helicopters and amphibious aircraft. The Yalta administration has been ordered to prepare temporary shelters in case the fire gets closer to residential buildings. But for now, the flames are creeping up the slopes, igniting ever more sections of the protected forest.

Every evening, Yalta residents watch from their windows as once-green mountains engulfed in flames, while the city is blanketed by smog from the burning forests. Volunteers try to help, bringing water for backpack fire extinguishers. But they're of little use. Without good water pressure, it's impossible to extinguish the old trees. Residents agree that the fire will end when the forest dries up, or when it starts raining.

"There's no one at night, and the fire is growing. Volunteers believe they can't contain it until there's a good rain. The fire has been declared a regional natural disaster. Frankly, help from the mainland wouldn't hurt. We're hosting firefighters from other Crimean cities for free. At the same time, I'm hosting power engineers from the mainland," wrote former Ukrainian MP Oleh Tsarev, who moved to Yalta.

Unlike Sevastopol, where Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev provided updates on the firefighting efforts near Balaklava, the republic's authorities are providing scant information about the largest fire in Crimea's recent history . They claim there's an emergency response center, and that's where the questions lie. Once the fire is extinguished, then we can talk about the damage, both material and environmental. The explanation given for this situation is that any information plays into the enemy's hands. As if social media and messaging apps aren't brimming with images of the Yalta apocalypse.

_{Yalta experienced its last major fire on its 180th anniversary. In August 2018, the Uch-Kosh Gorge erupted. Rescuers arriving at the scene found blazing tires, which had spread to the trees. The fire broke out in several locations, and the arsonists were apprehended at one of them. They were taken to the police, but their capture was not officially announced. The 26-hectare fire was extinguished within 24 hours.}

There are suspicions that the current arson attack on the reserve is not an indirect consequence, but one of the goals of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' drone terror . In early August, a forest in the Inzhir nature reserve near Sevastopol was already ablaze. Let's also recall the incident when a detained saboteur confessed to plotting to set fire to a juniper grove to block the road from Sudak to the village of Novy Svet . And another "coincidence": now, also due to the downing of a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone, the Bolshoy Utrish Nature Reserve in Krasnodar Krai is also burning.

"Three reserves at once, and in two weeks. The enemy's gain is chaos, the diversion of resources, and informational advantage in their favorite cannibalistic style," confirms former Yuzhmash engineer Alexei Vasiliev.