- The fire in a forest near 50 kilometres from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has led to a 16-fold increase in radiation in the area. The flames have started to take off from the polluting particles that were on the ground at the time.
The fire declared this Saturday has ravaged about 100 hectares of a forest near Vladimirovka, and the firefighters were trying to extinguish it completely on Tuesday. Vladimirovka is located in a 30-kilometer exclusion zone, and it appears that the radiation level "alone" has increased in that area. In the capital, Kiev, for example, has not been affected by the fire, not even in the city of Chernobyl.
One person has been arrested by the National Police as alleged author of the fire, according to the local newspaper 'The Guardian'.
"It's bad news," Ukraine's chief environmental inspection service Yegor Firsov wrote on his Facebook account. "In the middle of the fire the radiation is higher than usual," he added. In the video you shared, you can see that the Geiger meter's figures are 16 times higher than usual. Firsov added that the increase in the resumption has complicated the work of extinguishing the fire, but he explained that the people living in the surrounding villages are out of harm's way.