Russia sent the army on Saturday to battle wildfires that have killed at least 28 people and were threatening dozens of towns and villages. Thick smoke and ash slowed firefighting efforts and thousands of people were being evacuated.

Half of the 300 homes in the village of Maslovka, half a day's drive south of Moscow, were reduced to cinders. Stunned locals sifted through the ash for possessions to salvage and people pooled what little food they had — mainly potatoes and carrots — to ensure no one starved.

"This is a catastrophe," Maslovka resident Yevgeniya Yuzhina said as she waited in a hotel lobby in the nearby city of Voronezh filling out a form to receive cash compensation.

All 300 of the army's fire trucks have been dispatched, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said,

Many regions of the country are suffering through their hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago. Officials said Friday over 214,136 acres of parched woodland and peat bog were burning in at least 14 of the country's 83 regions, mainly in western Russia. State television reported Saturday that the death had risen from the last reported figure of 25, without providing details.

"Fire and wind have no days off, so we can't take any days off," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in a videoconference with emergency officials, where he announced 3 million rubles ($100,000) would be allocated for each of the 1,200 homes destroyed so far. He pledged that all would eventually be rebuilt.

Yuzhina said her house had been worth half a million rubles more than the amount Putin pledged and her husband, daughter and elderly parents now had no place to go.