Forest fires rage near Chernobyl nuclear plant
Ukraine’s emergencies services say there is no threat to the facility.
Forest fires are raging in the contaminated area near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but officials insist there is no radiation threat.
Hundreds of firefighters backed by aircraft have been battling several forest fires around Chernobyl since last week. They managed to contain the initial blazes, but new fires are now raging close to the decommissioned plant.
Volodymyr Demchuk of Ukraine’s state Emergencies Service insisted the situation is under control.
“There is no threat to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, waste fuel storage or other critical facilities,” he said.
Yaroslav Yemelyanenko, a member of the public council under the state agency in charge of the closed zone around the plant, said one fire was raging just over a mile from one of the radioactive waste depots.
“The situation is critical,” he said on Facebook.
Last week, officials said they had tracked down a man suspected of triggering the blaze by setting dry grass on fire in the area. The 27-year-old said he burned grass “for fun” and then failed to extinguish the fire when the wind caused it to expand quickly.
The 1,000 square mile Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established after the April 1986 disaster at the plant that sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe. The zone is largely unpopulated, although about 200 people have remained despite orders to leave.
Blazes in the area have been a regular occurrence. They often start when residents set dry grass on fire in the early spring — a widespread practice in Ukraine, Russia and some other ex-Soviet nations that often leads to devastating forest fires.
