New fires broke out in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone on Thursday, fanned by heavy winds that have made it harder to put out the blaze, Ukrainian officials said.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s emergency service said the fire has been extinguished after rain fell in the region, and stressed that there is no radiation risk.
The state emergency service said three new fires had broken out, but were “not large-scale and not threatening”.
Volodymyr Demchuk, director of the Emergency Response Department, said that the radioactive background in Kyiv and the region is within normal limits, and added that more than 1,000 people were trying to extinguish the fires.
Earlier, police have identified the man who started the fire, a 27-year-old resident of the Rahivka village, who told investigators that he had set grass and rubbish on fire in three places “for fun”, but was unable to extinguish them after the wind had picked up.
The fire sparked concerns that clouds of radioactive smoke could be released and blow south towards Kyiv, after an activist posted a video online showing a cloud of smoke rising within sight of the protective dome over Chernobyl’s Unit 4 nuclear reactor.
