Fears rise that Russian wildfires could spread radioactive fallout from Chernobyl disaster

Russian wildfires raise Chernobyl radiation fears

MOSCOW — Russian emergency workers have increased forest patrols in a western region contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, trying to prevent wildfires that could spread harmful radiation, officials said Wednesday.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups and forest experts say radioactive dust from the Chernobyl disaster could be harmful, even though doses would likely be small.

Fire crews quickly extinquished about six new wildfires spotted this week in the Bryansk region, the part of Russia that suffered the most from the Chernobyl catastrophe in what was then Soviet Ukraine, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Yegorushkina said. Her agency also had reported sporadic wildfires last week, but said all had been put out.

She said radiation experts from Moscow determined there has been no increase in radiation levels in the Bryansk area, on the border of Belarus and Ukraine. The soil holds radioactive particles that settled after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s reactor No. 4 exploded during a pre-dawn test on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive clouds over much of the western Soviet Union and northern Europe.

Environmentalists have warned that the particles could be thrown into the air by wildfires and blown into other areas by the wind.

Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu acknowledged the danger last week, but said Wednesday “the situation here is not as difficult as in the areas around Moscow,” where acrid clouds of smog from the fires have polluted the air.

Hundreds of wildfires sparked by the hottest summer ever recorded in Russia have engulfed large areas of western Russia. Moscow’s death rate has doubled to 700 people a day. Morgues have been overflowing, and residents have been desperately seeking ways to stay cool amid soaring temperatures and air pollution.

About 165,000 workers and 39 firefighting aircraft were battling more than 600 blazes nationwide Wednesday over 220,000 acres (more than 90,000 hectares), the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

In several southwestern regions hit by the Chernobyl fallout, fires have engulfed about 9,600 acres (3,900 hectares), though most of those blazes have been snuffed out, said Vasily Tuzov, a deputy head of the federal forest protection service.

He said it wouldn’t be clear if fires had spread radioactive particles into previously unpolluted areas until workers had conducted tests. “All we know now is that there have been fires in the areas with higher radiation levels,” he told The Associated Press.

But Emergency Situations Ministry official Vladislav Bolov insisted Wednesday that a check of the areas contaminated by Chernobyl this week proved the fires had not spread any radiation, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The Bryansk forest protection service has increased patrols around the Bryansk forests, particularly in the southwest section affected by Chernobyl, agency chief Vladimir Rozinkevich said. “There is a danger, but we are controlling the situation,” he said.

A Russian forest expert said the mixture of radioactive elements remaining in the forest floor was still dangerous.

“A cloud may come up with soot and spread over a huge territory,” said Alexander Isayev of the Moscow-based Center for Forest Ecology and Productivity.

In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had no comment on the radioactive dangers posed by the wildfires.

Associated Press reporters Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow and Rafael Gurbisz in Vienna contributed to this report.