You're reading: If Chornobyl forests burn, what’s the harm to Kyivans?

According to international experts, a potential wildfire in the exclusion zone around the closed Chornobyl nuclear power plant would not be a cause for panic in Kyiv.

As Russia’s forest and peat fires continue to burn for at least the seventh consecutive week, flames kicked up in neighboring Ukraine, including two fires in Chernobyl’s 2,826 square kilometer exclusion zone, which is highly radioactive. The blazes were swiftly extinguished. And they are not unusual.Up to 70 fires break out every year near the scene of the 1986 disaster, the world’s worst nuclear accident.

But this summer’s atypical weather pattern — temperatures topping 40 degrees and humidity at one-third of normal levels — is creating conditions conducive to far wider fire outbreaks. If unsuppressed near Chornobyl, about 90 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, fires could release radionuclides into the air.

Nonetheless, a team of international experts argues that the particles would be diluted enough to not cause harm to people in Kyiv.

“According to our preliminary analysis, our worst-case scenario proved to be not that bad," said professor Chad Oliver,director of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry at America’s Yale University.“The amounts of radioactivity that would be released would not be cause for panic,” Oliver said. “Nevertheless, it’s important to be prepared."

Oliver has studied the exclusion zone for the past five years along with Sergiy Zibtsev, an associate professor at Ukraine’s National University of Life and Environmental Sciences, and the university’s rector, Dmytro Melnychuk. The three are joined by Dr. Johann Goldammer of the Global Fire Monitoring Center, an institution of the Max Planck Society, and United Nations University.

While increased wildfires in the exclusion zone should not be cause for alarm as far away as Kyiv, Oliver said, they might warrant certain precautionary measures, such as inspecting produce for radiation fallout, which could reach Kyiv via smoke clouds.

Oliver sees a high likelihood that the zone’s forests will burn. The problem is a combustible combination of hot, dry weather and crowded trees which, when dead, act as fuel for fire. Equally important, he believes that proactive measures could avoid the fires — good news for the Ukrainian government.

"Appropriate management could dramatically reduce the sizes — and hence dangers — of fires in these forests. Therefore, the problem is solvable," Oliver said. "It is important that the public be informed of the potential impacts of these fires."

The exclusion zone retains the highest concentration of harmful radionuclides in the world, most of it trapped in the surrounding forest and peat bog ecosystems, seeped in topsoil, leaves, needles and tree bark.

Given this environment, Goldammer is careful to allow for an element of unpredictability. "Are we really able to model everything that burns under certain conditions? Governments need to invest more in finding out," he said.

During the last week, 436 forest fires and 54 peat fires burned in Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations.Last week, President Viktor Yanukovych calledan extraordinary meeting of the National Security and Defense Council dedicated to combating the fire threat and created a special council for wildfire alert.

From his holiday perch in Crimea’s Foros — where Gorbachev held out during the August 1991 Soviet coup attempt — Yanukovych talked tough. He reportedly told advisers that he wanted every fire investigated."Nobody paid attention to the government’s instructions for military units,” the president said. “The training exercises continue, to which soldiers go with cigarettes and lighters.”

Yanukovychcut short his Black Sea vacation and returned to Kyiv to monitor the situation.

Serious questions exist about Ukraine’s preparedness. At Chornobyl, much of the zone’s fire management infrastructure, outfitted with Soviet-era trucks and protection suits, is inadequate. There is not automated early-warning system which could quickly detect a fire’s source and strength, and track its spread. Instead, the zone’s 200-strong forest management team occasionally patrols for fires in trucks on untended forest roads, which are themselves often obstructed by trees.

"The situation right now is stable," said Yevheniy Kyrylyuk, deputy director for fire management in the exclusion zone. "But our technical equipment is old and should be renewed."

"If a big fire were to happen, the government does not have adequate capacity for a first response. They’re obviously not prepared for a Russia-like wildfire situation," Zibtsev said. "When we’re talking about radiation, the problem is that nobody can know for sure. Scientists can make mistakes."

Chornobyl’s forest management needs have escaped the international community’s attention, which to date has focused on replacing the reactor sarcophagous and, more recently, erecting a new safe confinement on top of it.Projected costs for this project exceed $1 billion.

By comparison, forest management in the exclusion zone now costs $2.5 million annually. Oliver predicts that an early-warning system would cost an additional $1 million per year.In his view, a proper forest management package – the early-warning system and modernized infrastructure, including equipment to properly space trees and clear dead ones – would cost about $20 million per year.

This would seem like a worthwhile investment, especially for the people who work in the area. As Zibtsev says: "They are just heroes in fact. They know about the threat, but they stay there and do their work."

Alexa Chopivsky is a freelance writer in Kyiv.