Fire in Chernobyl happens due to a cigar-butt
In spite of the wind blowing towards Belarus experts say that the fire in the Chernobyl alienation zone is not dangerous. Grass caught fire on Wednesday evening there, and the fire was put out only on Thursday morning. The fire did not reach the nuclear power station thanks to the river Pripyat, moreover, there were swaps around so the fire would not spread anyway. The fire was put out by 60 employees of the Emergency Control Ministry, 10 special vehicles were used for it.
The Minister of Emergency Control of Ukraine Nestor Shufrych flew over the territory of the fire yesterday. There were three seats of fire on the territory of 60 hectares. The head of the Ukrainian Emergency Control Ministry press service Igor Krol comments on the issue.
Igor Krol: “There were no smoke formations”. If the fire had spread over a vast territory it would have caused damage, but we did not even have to use additional forces, everything was done by the local Emergency Control subdivision.
The radiation level is constantly being controlled everywhere. This fire did not affect the radiation level in any way. It was a small problem and it cannot even be classified as an emergency.
Most likely, the reason for it was someone’s imprudence (the railway Chernobyl-Slavutich circulates there), it must have been someone’s burning cigarette-butt thrown out of the window”.
The wind was blowing towards Belarus and Ukrainian mass media announced that Ukrainians had nothing to worry about. On the contrary, Belarusians did worry. There were only a few kilometers from the fire to Belarus. But Homel Committee on Liquidation of Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster calmed us down.
Yauhen Belash: “There is our surveillance station near the village of Masany, they control the radioactive background and check the radiation level every three hours. They did not register any increase of the level otherwise they would have immediately informed us about it”.
The gamma background did not increase neither on March 21, nor on March 22. It is 60 micro Sv per hour (in Brahin).
In the research unit at Masany (Hoiniki District) no one even heard about the fire. ERB phoned them and got to know that fires in the Chernobyl zone were not a rare thing.
The department of radiation safety: “There are so many arsons of grass here – purposeful or accidental… Every spring. Everyone burns grass here. Every collective farm.
It is forbidden, and they are fined for it, but drive along any road and you will see how many fires will be there. Moreover, there can be forest fires too.
We even examined respirators of people who extinguished those fires. We took 20 of them taking into account how many hours those people worked.
The concentration of radiation in the air is doubled during fires, but it is still not that much. It is 20 times less than the pollution standard”.
The department of radiation safety confirmed that the major air analysis is done once a month. You have to filter thousands of cubic meters of air, so it takes a few days.
The analysis results will be ready in April. But employees of the research unit at Masany are sure there that no dramatic increase of radiation level will be registered. Let us hope for it.
Photo by www.legambiente-marche.com
The Minister of Emergency Control of Ukraine Nestor Shufrych flew over the territory of the fire yesterday. There were three seats of fire on the territory of 60 hectares. The head of the Ukrainian Emergency Control Ministry press service Igor Krol comments on the issue.
Igor Krol: “There were no smoke formations”. If the fire had spread over a vast territory it would have caused damage, but we did not even have to use additional forces, everything was done by the local Emergency Control subdivision.
The radiation level is constantly being controlled everywhere. This fire did not affect the radiation level in any way. It was a small problem and it cannot even be classified as an emergency.
Most likely, the reason for it was someone’s imprudence (the railway Chernobyl-Slavutich circulates there), it must have been someone’s burning cigarette-butt thrown out of the window”.
The wind was blowing towards Belarus and Ukrainian mass media announced that Ukrainians had nothing to worry about. On the contrary, Belarusians did worry. There were only a few kilometers from the fire to Belarus. But Homel Committee on Liquidation of Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster calmed us down.
Yauhen Belash: “There is our surveillance station near the village of Masany, they control the radioactive background and check the radiation level every three hours. They did not register any increase of the level otherwise they would have immediately informed us about it”.
The gamma background did not increase neither on March 21, nor on March 22. It is 60 micro Sv per hour (in Brahin).
In the research unit at Masany (Hoiniki District) no one even heard about the fire. ERB phoned them and got to know that fires in the Chernobyl zone were not a rare thing.
The department of radiation safety: “There are so many arsons of grass here – purposeful or accidental… Every spring. Everyone burns grass here. Every collective farm.
It is forbidden, and they are fined for it, but drive along any road and you will see how many fires will be there. Moreover, there can be forest fires too.
We even examined respirators of people who extinguished those fires. We took 20 of them taking into account how many hours those people worked.
The concentration of radiation in the air is doubled during fires, but it is still not that much. It is 20 times less than the pollution standard”.
The department of radiation safety confirmed that the major air analysis is done once a month. You have to filter thousands of cubic meters of air, so it takes a few days.
The analysis results will be ready in April. But employees of the research unit at Masany are sure there that no dramatic increase of radiation level will be registered. Let us hope for it.
Photo by www.legambiente-marche.com
