Forest Fire Near Chornobyl Almost Caused Another Nuclear Disaster

While the entire world is busy self-isolating and posting millions of memes on the Internet, the issue of forest fires snuck up on us again. This time things could have turned very ugly, as the flames almost reached the infamous Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine.

On April 4, a large-scale forest fire broke out in the exclusion zone near the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. As an immediate response, two aircraft and a helicopter started assessing and then extinguishing the flames. In total, more than 90 firefighters and 18 vehicles were involved in fighting the fire in the first few days. But the strong wind made the situation much worse.