no rains. We are surrounded by the front of fire, as if inside a horseshoe.' Pictures: Greenpeace

On Sunday, Russia's emergencies' minister Vladimir Puchkov called for additional measures to protect residents in the affected areas and spoke of 'the inability to truly evaluate the area' of the fire-affected regions.

Satellite surveillance remains hampered by the cloud of smoke, he added. Production was interrupted at Irkutsk Oil Company's operations in the Yaraktinskoye field due to the strong smoke from forest fires.

Equipment failed to work due to lack of oxygen, it was reported.

'This has happened for the first time,' said Sergey Anisimov, acting head of oil and gas processing management. Abnormal, dry weather, and almost no rains. We are surrounded by the front of fire, as if inside a horseshoe.

Yaraktinskoye oil fieldis located 140 kilometres from Ust-Kut town, in the upper reaches of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska River. Pictures: The Siberian Times, Vkontakte

'We dig ditches. We reduce pumping because of smoke, because the people and the process equipment should be protected. When the situation is improving, the wind changes the direction, we start again.'

Chief editor of Ust-Kut newspaper Dialog, Ekaterina Rodionova, said: 'Employees of Irkutsk Oil Company are extinguishing the fires on their own.

'Over Yarakta hangs thick smog. It does not permit finding out the exact area of fire in order to extinguish it from the air, although there is a helicopter available.'

Workers at the oil field sent a video to Russia 24 television channel showing the smoke on the processing site. It was also reported that the work on