Ukraine Firefighters Battle Chernobyl Fire After Two Drones Crash
A chernobyl fire broke out on Friday inside the exclusion zone after two drones crashed near the site, sending firefighters into the 1,000-square-mile cordon around Reactor No. 4. Officials said radiation levels were within normal limits as crews worked to contain a blaze that Vyacheslav Chaus said was expanding across a wider area.
Chaus, the governor of Ukraine’s neighboring Chernihiv region, said Russian craft had been hovering over the area and interfering with the fire response: “Russian craft have been constantly hovering over the area and impeding the fire response.” He said the blaze covered around 15 square miles, while the fire was also described as spanning at least five square miles.
Firefighters in the exclusion zone
Firefighters were working on Friday to contain the blaze inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone, which surrounds the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. The zone contains large amounts of dead trees and debris that can readily burn, and fires there can release radioactive materials stored in plants and animals.
That risk has drawn more attention since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The article also says a Russian drone strike in 2025 left the massive protective steel dome over Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4 damaged for more than a year.
Reactor No. 4 and its legacy
Reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, killing two engineers instantly. Dozens more workers at the plant later became sick and died because of radiation exposure over the proceeding decades, and thousands of cases of cancer in people living near the plant have been tied to radiation from the explosion.
The United Nations estimates that thousands of people have died or will die as a result of the disaster. Against that backdrop, even a fire that starts with two drones and stays within normal radiation readings forces Ukrainian responders to work in a place where the damage of one accident has never fully faded.
Ukraine’s next response
The immediate task for Ukraine is containment in the exclusion zone while Russian craft continue to be cited by Vyacheslav Chaus as a barrier to the response. With radiation levels still within normal limits, the next operational question is whether firefighters can keep the blaze from spreading through the dead vegetation and debris that make the area vulnerable.
