A forest fire burning in the exclusion zone around the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine has caused local radiation levels to spike, according to the Ukrainian Ecological Inspection Service. The fire, which has burned about a square kilometre of forest and peat bog near the abandoned village of Vladimirovka, and which is thought to have been deliberately started, is reported to have caused ambient radiation levels in the area to rise from a typical average level of 0.14 microsieverts per hour to about 2.30 microsieverts per hour. This is still only about a quarter of the level at which exposure becomes slightly dangerous, but a 1600% increase in a short period of time is cause for concern, and it is indicative of radioactive material formerly bound on soil and/or plant tissue being released into the atmosphere and redistributed. Smoke from the fire has been seen travelling about 100 km to the south, prompting Ukrainian police to evacuate about 200 people who had returned to the town of Poliske.
A forest fire burning near the abandoned village of Vladimirovka in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on 5 April 2020. Yaroslav Emelianenko/AFP/Getty Images.
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was established in 1985 following a fire at the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which caused 43 deaths at the time, and is thought to have been responsible for about a hundred since. around 120 000 people were permanently evacuated from the zone, which has a radius of 30 km, centred on the site of the former power plant (part of this extends into neighbouring Belarus, where it is known as the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve. Ambient radiation levels in much of the zone today are not significantly higher than would be encountered living on a granite soil, but there remains concerns about radioactive material being redistributed by any large scale Human activity. As such the area has effectively become one of the largest nature reserves in Europe, with a large number of species, including large Mammals, recolonising the area.
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Smoke plumes from a fire burning in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on 9 April 2020. As imaged by the MODIS instrument on the Aqua Satellite. NASA/Visible Earth.
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