“I think the fire will be localized today,” Shkiryak said on Ukraine’s 112 television channel adding that there is no current threat to the Chernobyl plant or surrounding structures.
Earlier in the day, Shkiryak said on Facebook that the background radiation in the wildfire area is normal and does not pose a health threat.
Wildfires inside the Chernobyl 19-mile Exclusion Zone started Tuesday and spread across a territory of about 320 hectares. Some 300 firefighters and 51 units of equipment, including planes and helicopters, are working to extinguish the fire.
The April 26, 1986, Chernobyl nuclear disaster contaminated an area of some 19,000 square miles mainly in areas of three then-Soviet republics: Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Dozens of people, mostly plant workers and rescuers, died in the accident and of acute radiation syndrome in the following months, while tens of thousands were exposed to high doses of radiation. A total of about 200,000 people were relocated after the accident.
