Ukraine continues to battle forest fire near Chernobyl that caused radiation levels to rise
Ukrainian authorities on Monday have sought to calm fears around a forest fire burning in the contaminated zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power station that briefly caused local radiation levels to rise.
Police said they tracked down a person suspected of starting the blaze by setting dry grass on fire in the area. The 27-year-old man said he burned grass “for fun” and then failed to extinguish the fire when the wind caused it to expand quickly.
Firefighters on Monday said they were still trying to extinguish two fires that had begun on Saturday and which had spread to part of the 30-mile “exclusion zone” around the power station, the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986. And they managed to put out the smaller of the two fires, which engulfed about 12 acres, but the second one continued burning, covering about 50 acres. They said they were using aircraft to extinguish the blaze.
The fires have sparked fears about radiation in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which is about 60 miles south of Chernobyl, but authorities said that testing by experts sent by the government on Monday had found that there had been no rise in radiation levels in Kyiv or its surrounding suburbs.
The 2,600-square-kilometer (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. Some of them 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.
Ukrainian police said that they beefed up patrols in the area around the Chernobyl zone to prevent new fires.
Police said they tracked down a person suspected of starting the blaze by setting dry grass on fire in the area. The 27-year-old man said he burned grass “for fun” and then failed to extinguish the fire when the wind caused it to expand quickly.
Firefighters on Monday said they were still trying to extinguish two fires that had begun on Saturday and which had spread to part of the 30-mile “exclusion zone” around the power station, the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986. And they managed to put out the smaller of the two fires, which engulfed about 12 acres, but the second one continued burning, covering about 50 acres. They said they were using aircraft to extinguish the blaze.
The fires have sparked fears about radiation in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which is about 60 miles south of Chernobyl, but authorities said that testing by experts sent by the government on Monday had found that there had been no rise in radiation levels in Kyiv or its surrounding suburbs.
The 2,600-square-kilometer (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. Some of them 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.
Ukrainian police said that they beefed up patrols in the area around the Chernobyl zone to prevent new fires.
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