Fires at Chernibyl -Reply

[Jim Hardeman <Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us>]

The following is the Reuters news story as posted on the
CNN Interactive Web site.

===========================================

Fire burns villages near Chernobyl reactor

April 23, 1996
Web posted at: 11:20 a.m. EDT (1520 GMT)

TOVSTY LIS, Ukraine (Reuter) -- Fire engulfed at least five
villages inside the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl
nuclear power station Tuesday while former residents were
making their annual visit to the homes they abandoned.

Firefighters hadn't determined the reason for the blaze, which
broke out during this year's first spell of warm weather. They
said flames, smoke and dust sent radiation readings soaring
in the heavily contaminated 18-mile zone around the stricken
plant.

"So far, we have no indication that anyone has died in the
fire, but the fire is spreading very quickly," said one firefighter
at the scene.

Some 300 former residents quickly left on the buses that had
brought them to the villages, which are 18 kilometers (12
miles) from the plant.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from towns
and villages in the aftermath of the fire and explosion on April
26, 1986, in the Chernobyl plant's fourth reactor.


>>> John Moulder <jmoulder@post.its.mcw.edu> 04/23/96
12:29 >>>
Wire story says that one or more of the abandoned cities in
the "heavily  contaminated region" (by which I presume the
10 km region) is burning "out of  control" and releasing
"radioactivity".

On the surface the story seems plausible.  There are
abandoned cities/ villages, and they could still be
contaminated.  A fire would lift some of  that contamination
into the air.  A big fire could spread it quite a ways.

I think that the remaining contamination would be mostly
cesium-137 (and some  134), strontium-90, and plutonium
isotopes.