The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is on Fire and Radiation Levels are Spiking
By Rafi Letzter | Staff Writer

LIVE SCIENCE – April 9, 2020 | Part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone where the infamous power plant explosion occurred in 1986 is on fire, and radiation in the area is spiking.

The fire covers about 50 acres (20 hectares) near the abandoned village of Vladimirovka in Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, according to CNN. In a Facebook post, Yegor Firsov, head of Ukraine’s ecological inspection service, showed a Geiger counter near the fire reading 2.3 microsievert per hour, a measurement of ambient radiation. The normal reading in the area is 0.14 μSv/h, which is significantly higher than typical radiation levels in other places.

A forest fire is burning in part of Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, shown here on April 5, 2020. Ukrainian officials reported a spike in radiation levels due to the fire.
(Image: © YAROSLAV EMELIANENKO/AFP via Getty Images)

The environmental conditions around Chernobyl are not fully understood, but a 1996 paper in the journal Science of the Total Environment showed that key radiation-carrying elements — cesium, iodine and chlorine — can get picked up by plants and animals in the region and end up in ash when they burn.

“But this is only within the area of the fire outbreak,” Firsov wrote.