A wildfire burning in the Chernobyl region of Ukraine has led to increased levels of radiation nearly 35 years after the 1986 nuclear accident.
The fires have burned through more than 8,600 acres over the past week, according to the Exclusion Zone Management Agency, the government office that manages the area.
Radiation readings near the wildfires have been elevated in recent days, although they remain considerably lower than what they were at the time of the nuclear accident, according to the New York Times. The wind has been blowing toward rural areas of Russia and Belarus for most of the past week, but it recently shifted directions going toward Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
Saturday’s winds directed the blaze toward the remnants of the nuclear plant. Should the fire spread to the Zone of Alienation, a rough circle with a nearly 18-mile radius around the old facility, it would force responders to enter the area that has been mostly deserted.
“We have been working all night digging firebreaks around the plant to protect it from fire,” Kateryna Pavlova, the acting head of the agency that oversees the area, told the New York Times.
