Forest fires sweeping across Russia have killed 25 people, including two firefighters, while 2,178 people have had their homes destroyed.
Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, 900 patients from a hospital in Voronezh and 1,200 children from summer camps in Ryazan, the ministry said.
Health Minister Tatyana Golikova said that 439 people had been injured in Voronezh alone and 43 were in a serious condition in hospital.
Officials said the temperatures are the highest since records began 130 years ago.
Fanned by strong winds, fires ripped through woods and fields that have been scorched for weeks by a heatwave, incinerating hundreds of wooden houses.
Drought in some regions of Russia, one of the world's biggest wheat exporters, has sent global prices soaring to year highs, putting US wheat futures on track for their biggest monthly gain since 1973.
The emergencies ministry said 238,000 people have been deployed to fight peat and forest fires across 866 sq. km, an area about the size of Berlin.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cancelled meetings in Moscow to fly to the Nizhny Novgorod region, where at least 540 homes were destroyed.
He ordered his government to allocate 5bn roubles (€126m) to help victims.
State television showed a crowd of women surrounding Mr Putin, demanding to know if the government would pay for rebuilding their homes. 'Do not worry, do not worry,' he said. 'I promise you the village will be fully rebuilt.'
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the military to help fight the fires and Mr Putin warned that officials who failed to deal properly with the fires would be sacked.
Residents in Nizhny Novgorod had tried to fight the flames with buckets of water but state television channel Rossiya said 340 houses in one village were destroyed in 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, a hurricane caused by the sudden advent of a cold front ravaged parts of the north-western Leningrad region on Friday night, killing at least seven people.
