The fire situation deteriorated in the territory of the Chоrnobylska Puscha facility for the management of the Chоrnobyl exclusion zone on Tuesday evening after the wind changed its direction towards the Chоrnobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said.
“Forest fires intensified around the Chоrnobyl nuclear power plant at 6:30 p.m. The flames are again attacking a forest sprawling to the Chоrnobyl nuclear power plant facilities. The flames that have climbed up the tops of the trees and strong gusts of wind are threatening to push the fires to a zone within 20 kilometers from the nuclear power plant. About 400 hectares of forests are ablaze,” Avakov wrote on Facebook.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has called an emergency meeting of the Emergency Situations Commission. “The National Guard and interior troops have been alerted,” he wrote.
Yatseniuk and personnel of the Emergency Situations Service “are working in the direct vicinity of the fire line. I am working in Kyiv, at the airport, coordinating departures of special flights,” Avakov said.
Chief of the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Service Zorian Shkiriak earlier said that 320 hectares of forests were ablaze in the exclusion zone. Firefighters have prevented the flames from spreading to the nuclear power plant.
