Firefighters are trying to put out forest fires around the Chernobyl nuclear power station (Picture: Kirill Garnik)

A wildfire that has been raging for several days in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is now just a few kilometres from the abandoned nuclear plant, according to reports.

Hundreds of firefighters are battling the forest fire while officials insisted there is no risk to the ruined reactor and nearby nuclear waste storage facilities.

While forest fires are common in the exclusion zone, Greenpeace Russia said this blaze, which broke out ten days ago, is the worst since the 1986 nuclear explosion.

The campaigners said satellite images showed the fire at its closest point was just 1.5 kilometres from the protective dome over the ruined reactor.


An aerial view shows a forest fire in the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine (Picture: Reuters)

A house on fire in the village of Stara Markivka close to the Chernobyl exclusion zone (Picture: Pyotr Sivkov/TASS)

Clouds of smoke billow out from the raging forest fire (Picture: AFP via Getty)

Sergiy Zibtsev, head of the Regional Eastern European Fire Monitoring Center, said the fire is ‘super-huge’ and ‘unpredictable’.



‘In the west of the exclusion zone it has already covered 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) by our calculations.’

But Ukraine’s deputy interior minister Anton Gerashchenko said there is no danger for the nuclear waste storage facilities.

‘It’s completely safe,’ he said on Facebook.

Volodymyr Demchuk, a senior official from Ukraine’s emergency service, said firefighters are now focused on stopping the spread.

In a video statement, he said: ‘There is no threat to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the storage facilities.’

Kiev has mobilised helicopters and more than 400 firefighters, with planes dropping tonnes of water on the fire.

Firefighters battle with a forest fire near the village of Ragovka, close to the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Picture: EPA)

Fire from the radioactive Chernobyl zone approaches the village of Ragovka (Picture: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A field on flames not far from the nuclear power plant (Picture: AFP)

Tour operator Yaroslav Yemelianenko said the fire had reached the ghost town of Pripyat, a city near Chernobyl whose population of around 50,000 was evacuated after the explosion.

Pripyat has become popular with tourists from all over the world.

‘The situation is critical,’ Yemelianenko wrote on his Facebook page. He added that if the fire destroyed Pripyat it would be an economic disaster, as tourists from around the world visit the ‘ghost town’ on supervised tours.

The fire broke out on April 4 in a forested area near the Chernobyl power plant.

Police said the blaze was started by a man burning dry grass near the exclusion zone around the ruined reactor.

The flames spread quickly, fanned by strong winds, and Kiev began deploying helicopters and firefighting planes.

Trees left blackened and burned by the Chernobyl wildfires (Picture: Reuters)

Burning trees and a road covered in heavy smoke in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Picture: Reuters)

Government agencies have insisted the fire has not caused a spike in radiation levels.

The head of the state ecological service, Yegor Firsov, wrote on Facebook a day after the fire broke out that levels at the centre of the fire were higher than normal. He later withdrew the claim.

Chernobyl polluted a large swathe of Europe when its fourth reactor exploded in April 1986.

People are not allowed to live within 30 kilometres (18 miles) of the power station.

The three other reactors at Chernobyl continued to generate electricity until the power station finally closed in 2000.

A giant protective dome was put in place over the fourth reactor in 2016.