- Kursha-2
Infobox wildfire
title= Kursha-2 fire
caption=
location=Kursha-2 ,Ryazan Oblast ,RSFSR ,USSR
cost=
date=August 3 ,1936
source=
area burnt=
landuse= Mixed, residential and forest
fatalities= 1,200
daKursha-2 ( _ru. Ку́рша-2) was an industrial community in the Central Meshchyora,
Ryazan Oblast . It was built soon after theOctober Revolution for the exploitation of the local forests and was annihilated by a firestorm onAugust 3 1936 . The disaster led to 1200 human deaths.A narrow-gauge railway ran from the Trans-Meshchyora trunk-railway to Kursha-2 and then extended to Lesomashinny and Charus. More than 1000 lived in this woodcutters' settlement in 1930s. Trains transported wood to Tumskaya, where it was finished.
In the beginning of August, 1936 a firestorm started near Charus, to south from Kursha-2. The firestorm extended to the north, evolving from lower to upper, i.e. when fire "jumping" over crowns of trees.
At night
August 2 an empty train came to Kursha-2. The train crew offered to evacuate children and women from the settlement, but a dispatcher ordered wood be loaded onto the train. This work hampered a departure, and firestorm reached the settlement. There weren't enough spaces on the train to evacuate all of the panic-stricken settlement and hundreds forced to stay at the station. The escapees sat on the carriage couplings, the steam-engine, and the cargo of wood logs. However, when the train reached a bridge across the canal to the north from Kursha-2, they found it already ablaze. The train was burnt with all passengers.As the result of the firestorm 1200 died (woodcutters, their families, railwaymen, military men, extinguished the fire), only 20 escaped, saving themselves in the pond, wells, the channel and the unforested hill.
Due to the totalitarian regime, the tragedy was forgotten; the only reminder of this event was a common grave near the ruins of the locomotive depot. The settlement was restored, but on a smaller scale. Soon after the
Great Patriotic War it was depopulated, the Kursha-Charus railway was dismantled and only foresters lived in Kursha-2. Now the settlement is in ruins and the sole resident of the area, as of 2006, was one 90-year old woman.References
* [http://www.geocaching.su/?pn=101&cid=1956 Курша-2: огненный шквал ]
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