( CNN ) -- With nearly 86,000 people evacuated from fire-ravaged regions , Russian authorities said Sunday that firefighters were gaining control over blazes sweeping across thousands of acres in western Russia . `` Despite complicated weather conditions , the situation is under control thanks to preventive measures and efforts taken by the Russian Emergencies Ministry , '' a spokesman for the ministry told the Itar-Tass news agency . At least 28 people have been killed and thousands left homeless by the wildfires , which are among the worst ever to hit western Russia . No fire-related deaths were reported since Friday , officials said Sunday . Two firefighters were among the dead , Itar-Tass reported , citing the Emergency Ministry . Latest figures from the ministry showed that 128,500 hectares ( 317,530 acres ) were burned or had burned , and 774 `` hotbeds of wildfire '' were counted as of 6 a.m. Sunday . About half the fires had either been extinguished or contained , the ministry spokesman said . `` The most difficult situation with wildfires remains in the Nizhny Novgorod , Vladimir and Voronezh regions and the Republic of Mordovia , where fires threaten several populated settlements , '' the ministry 's information department said . A hot , dry summer has been a key factor in the fires , drying out large parts of land and igniting the peat bogs that lie all over central Russia . Moscow , Russia , hit a temperature of 39 Celsius ( 102 Fahrenheit ) on Thursday , the highest temperature since records began in 1879 . The fires have destroyed more than 1,200 homes , the ministry said , and nearly 5,000 people have been left homeless . CNN 's Matthew Chance reported from the village of Maslovka , Russia , near Voronezh , that almost every house in the village of 500 people had burned to the ground . All the residents of Maslovka had been evacuated to nearby hotels . A resident of Maslovka named Nina told Chance she had returned to the village after the fire to sift through the rubble of the house where she was born . For 50 years , she said , she lived under the same roof . A few days ago , the wildfires were swept by high winds to the village and quickly engulfed her house . Now there was nothing left . Even the clothes she was wearing were not hers -- they had been given to her by a neighbor . As Nina told her story , an elderly woman walked from behind a broken wall , wailing with tears . Nina said the woman was her mother , devastated she had lost the home where she raised her family . Russia 's government has vowed to compensate the more than 1,870 families whose houses have been burned down . Amid complaints , Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered regional governors to speed up the compensation process . The Kremlin has called the wildfires a natural disaster of the kind that appear every 30 or 40 years . Critics , meanwhile , accuse local authorities of mismanaging the response . Desperate to control the blazes , Russia says its deployed nearly a quarter of a million people to fight the fires . But around Voronezh , many of the firefighters that Chance saw were just volunteers with buckets .
About half of the hundreds of wildfires in Russia are extinguished or contained . At least 28 people -- including two firefighters -- are dead . In one village , all 500 residents have been evacuated , and nearly every house is burned .