OREANDA-NEWS   Finland is satisfied with the cooperation with the Russian Ministry of emergency situations in the field of transboundary forest fires, said in an interview the head of the Finnish Ministry of the interior Kai, Mykkanen.

The Finnish meteorological Institute reported earlier that the period from May to August was the hottest in the history of meteorological observations in Finland, and the country's rescue services informed about the difficult situation with forest fires in the West and North of the state throughout the summer of this year.

"In the summer we faced cross-border fires in Lapland. It is therefore imperative that the process of dealing with them have been tweaked. Already at the moment, cooperation in this area is at a good level, but every time we face the question in such cases, whether Finnish rescuers can enter the territory of the Russian Federation, every minute can matter," the Minister said.

The interior Minister added that now Finland is creating a management system for major emergencies.

"After the regional reform, which is now happening in our country, there will be 18 regions that will be responsible for rescue operations — saving people, fighting fires. There will also be five centralized situation centres that will collect information for the regions and one information centre. So it was interesting to share experience in this sphere with the Russian side", — said Mykkanen.

He added that the Head of the Rescue Department of Finland was with him at a recent meeting on November, 13 in Moscow, where he had a conversation with his colleague from Russia.

"This is important because, unfortunately, I think, large forest fires will be even more present among our problems in the future, as the climate becomes warmer and drier," the Minister said.

The head of the Finnish interior Ministry visited Moscow on November 13, where he met with Patrushev, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russian Minister of emergency situations Yevgeny Zinichev and head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin.