vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #598 / Crime watch / Reading article...

A Khabarovsk region resident has received a one year suspended sentence and will have to pay 13.8 million rubles ($564,000) in damages for destroying a section of forest by fire through carelessness, a press statement from the regional Prosecutor’s Office reported Wednesday.

The investigation revealed that Andrei Knyazev, a resident of Solnechny County, started a fire in a local forest and left it unattended. When the blazes shifted to grass and trees, the man failed to put the fire out and had to call for the assistance.

The total area of the fire reached 102 hectares (252 acres), with trees entirely burnt and damaged in 25 hectares (62 acres).

The verdict was brought against the culprit by the county’s justice of the peace, the statement said.

This year, over 550 forest fires have occurred in Khabarovsk region, reaching a total area of 180,000 hectares (444,790 acres).