INTL Ukraine continues to battle forest fire near Chernobyl

H

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
I didn't find any postings on this....HC

Posted for fair use.....
apnews.com

Ukraine continues to battle forest fire near Chernobyl

Emergency teams in Ukraine are battling a forest fire in the contaminated area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that has raised radiation fears.
apnews.com apnews.com

Ukraine continues to battle forest fire near Chernobyl
yesterday

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency teams in Ukraine on Monday continued battling a forest fire in the contaminated area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that has raised radiation fears.

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.

Two blazes erupted Saturday in the zone around Chernobyl that was sealed after the 1986 explosion at the plant.

Firefighters said they managed Monday to put out the smaller of the two fires, which engulfed about five hectares (12 acres), but the second one continued burning, covering about 20 hectares (50 acres). They said they were using aircraft to extinguish the blaze.

The authorities said that radiation levels in the area engulfed by fires substantially exceeded normal levels, but the emergencies service said radiation levels in the capital, Kyiv, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south, were within norms.

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.
 
TheSearcher

TheSearcher

Are you sure about that?
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Shadow

Shadow

Swift, Silent,...Sleepy
It keeps getting worse. Pandemic, commit, locust, democratic congress and now an open air fire in a radioactive contaminated area!

Shadow
 
PanBear

PanBear

Veteran Member
(fair use)

Wildfire in radioactive forest spreads near Chernobyl
Author Bill Gabbert
Posted onApril 12, 2020
CategoriesWildfire TagsChernobyl, Ukraine

The fire has come to within about two kilometers of the abandoned nuclear reactor that exploded in 1986
Chernobyl-Fire-Sat-550-am-EDT-4-12-2020.jpg

The map shows heat detected by a satellite as late at 5:50 a.m. EDT April 12, 2020 on a wildfire burning in the exclusion zone near Chernobyl.

The wildfire burning through the radioactive forest in Ukraine has come to within about two kilometers of the “New Safe Containment” structure that covers the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded in 1986 at Pripyat.

According to satellite imagery from 5:50 a.m. EDT April 12 the eastward-spreading fire has crossed the Pripyat River just north of the city of Chernobyl. Our very unofficial estimates conclude that the blaze has burned nearly 18,000 acres. An even larger fire is burning about 25 km to the west.

Elevated radiation levels have been detected recently near wildfires burning in the Exclusion Zone or Zone of Alienation around the abandoned nuclear power plant. People are not allowed to live within 19 miles of the closed facility, however about 200 have remained in the area despite orders to leave.

Below is an excerpt from a New York Times article published April 11:

…Over time, radiation has settled into the soil, where its half-life ticks away mostly harmlessly. But the roots of moss, trees and other vegetation have absorbed some radiation, bringing it to the surface and spreading radioactive particles in smoke when it burns. Wildfires break out there often but the blazes burning through dry grass and pine forests this spring, after a warm and dry winter, are far larger than the typical brush fires in the Chernobyl zone.

By Saturday, about 400 firefighters, 100 fire engines and several helicopters had been deployed to the exclusion zone.

According to the state center of radiation and nuclear safety, contaminated smoke is expected to reach Kyiv this weekend. However, the radiation level in the air, once smoke has disbursed far from the fires, is considered safe. It is expected to be about a hundredth of the level deemed an emergency.

The Exclusion Zone Management Agency is trying to protect critical infrastructure in the Chernobyl zone, such as the plant itself and the so-called “graves,” or parking lots of abandoned, highly contaminated trucks and tracked vehicles that were left from the original disaster, officials said.

“We have been working all night digging firebreaks around the plant to protect it from fire,” said Kateryna Pavlova, the acting head of the agency that oversees the area.

Wildfire in radioactive forest spreads near Chernobyl
 
P

Plain Jane

Just Plain Jane
Ukraine claims that the fire is now out.

www.reuters.com

Forest fire around Chernobyl plant put out, Ukraine says

A huge fire that tore through forests around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant has been put out, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, after hundreds of emergency workers used planes and helicopters to douse the flames.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

ENVIRONMENT
APRIL 14, 2020 / 4:35 AM / UPDATED 21 MINUTES AGO
Forest fire around Chernobyl plant put out, Ukraine says

Pavel Polityuk
2 MIN READ

KIEV (Reuters) - A huge fire that tore through forests around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant has been put out, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, after hundreds of emergency workers used planes and helicopters to douse the flames.

Environmental activists said on Monday that the fire, near the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 and believed to have been started deliberately, posed a radiation risk.


Officials said they registered short-term rises in Caesium-137 particles in the Kiev area to the south of the plant, but radiation levels were within normal limits overall and did not require additional protection measures. They did not say why the particle levels rose.

Assisted by rain, emergency services prevented the fire from spreading to either the plant or military facilities in the area, though they will need a few more days to fully extinguish it, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said in a statement.

Separately, the state agency responsible for managing the area around the plant said new fires had broken out to the west and south of the site. Their extent was not immediately clear.

The main fire, one of several that followed unusually dry weather, broke out on April 3.

Police have accused a 27-year old local of deliberately starting it, and Zelenskiy’s office said officers had detained suspected arsonists near two points where the fire broke out.

Parliament voted on Monday to increase fines for arson.

The Chernobyl disaster in then-Soviet Ukraine occurred on April 26, 1986. It was caused by a botched safety test in reactor and sent clouds of nuclear material across much of Europe.

The plant and the abandoned nearby town of Pripyat have become a draw for tourists, especially since a critically acclaimed U.S. television miniseries about the accident was aired last year.

The site is currently shut as part of a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Writing by Matthias Williams; editing by John Stonestreet
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
 
Macgyver

Macgyver

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Didn't they have a practice of clear cutting the trees there to help remove the contaminates?
 
P

Plain Jane

Just Plain Jane
OK, so now it is back on.

www.reuters.com

New fires fanned by strong winds flare near Chernobyl in Ukraine

New fires broke out in the area around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant on Thursday, fanned by heavy winds that have made it harder to put out the blaze, Ukrainian officials said.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com

ENVIRONMENT
APRIL 16, 2020 / 2:16 PM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
New fires fanned by strong winds flare near Chernobyl in Ukraine


2 MIN READ

KIEV (Reuters) - New fires broke out in the area around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant on Thursday, fanned by heavy winds that have made it harder to put out the blaze, Ukrainian officials said.

Emergency workers managed several days ago to contain an initial bout of fires that tore through forests around the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986. Ukrainian authorities have played down any radiation risk.

The state emergency service said three new fires had broken out but were “not large-scale and not threatening”.

“The radioactive background in Kiev and the Kiev region is within normal limits,” Volodymyr Demchuk, director of the Emergency Response Department, said in a video statement.

He said more than 1,000 people were involved in trying to extinguish the fires.

Emergency workers used planes and helicopters to put out the earlier blaze this week but heavy winds prevented them from doing so on Thursday, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

The April 26, 1986 Chernobyl disaster in then-Soviet Ukraine was triggered by a botched safety test in a reactor and sent clouds of nuclear material across much of Europe.

The plant and the abandoned nearby town of Pripyat have become a tourist draw, especially since a critically acclaimed U.S. television miniseries about the accident aired last year.

The Chernobyl site is currently shut as part of a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Reporting by Ilya Zhegulev; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
 
PanBear

PanBear

Veteran Member
New Wildfires in Area Around Ukraine's Chernobyl Plant
By Associated Press
April 16, 2020 02:03 PM

60d9e42d6de3de98e1a4ef8c75faecf2.jpg


A view of a forest fire burning near the village of Volodymyrivka in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine, April 5, 2020.

MINSK - Three new wildfires have started in the radiation-contaminated evacuation zone around Ukraine's wrecked Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident 34 years ago, emergency officials said Thursday.

A statement from the Emergencies Ministry said the fires were small and posed no threat to facilities holding radioactive waste. The statement did give an area for the fires or say how they started, but said they were being fanned by gusty winds.

Firefighters battled large blazes in the area for 10 days this month before reporting Tuesday that they had been extinguished.

The fires are in the 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that was established after the 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. Fires in the area raise concerns that they could spread radioactive material.

New Wildfires in Area Around Ukraine's Chernobyl Plant
 
PanBear

PanBear

Veteran Member
We still do not have any clear and credible data on radiation level in #Chernobyl Here is the latest satellite imagery with the haze going towards Kiev. Radionuclides are travelling with haze from these fires. Most of it may settle within the exclusion zone and nearest area
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Melodi

Melodi

Disaster Cat
This is getting rather nerve-racking especially for those of us on this side the water - in reality, no one knows if these fires are arson or not but they sure look like it (because they put one out and another takes its place).

That said, Ireland is reasonably safe but when we lived in Sweden in the mid-1990s, the reindeer meat was still being checked before being placed in supermarkets and the Sammi were worried their way of life might be destroyed because the contamination was still that bad in parts of far Northern Europe.

I talked to people who lived through spending days inside after the accident (in places as far South as Germany) and I suspect one reason the Swedes opted to try and stay open during Corona Chan was their previous experiences with economic shutdowns forced by the radiation from the original accident.

Life did go on during that period, but I gather people had to run in and out of buildings and there were serious worries that things would get a lot worse than they did (or at least they did officially - like Three Mile Island we may never know the whole story).
 
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