Wildfires raging in Russia's Volgograd Region have now killed 4 people and injured 14, a Emergency Ministry spokeswoman said on Friday.

Over 500 buildings have been destroyed by flames in the Volgograd Region and the neighboring Saratov Region, she added.

Sources in the region's administration said almost 750 people have been evacuated from the disaster zone.

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered that measures be stepped up in order to contain the new outbreak of fires, the Kremlin said.

Medvedev also ordered Russian Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin to "organize the speedy rebuilding of houses and the payment of compensation to those affected."

Experts fear that strong winds could cause the new fires to spread to other regions, namely the Astrakhan Region and the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Kalmykia, an emergencies spokesperson said.

The fires that ravaged the European part of Russia in August killed over 50 people and destroyed more than 2,000 homes.

The government's response to the disaster was widely criticized and the damage wreaked by the new blazes, coming just days after Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu declared the fires beaten, could provoke further criticism.

"We defeated the peat fires and we defeated the forest fires," Shoigu said in a television interview broadcast on Sunday.

MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti)