Video Shows Raging Wildfire Near Ukraine's Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

The largest forest fire in Ukraine since 1992 is raging about 12 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant — the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. The blaze threatens to release radiation that is contained in the trees and soil around the abandoned facility.

Chernobyl's Number 4 reactor suffered a catastrophic meltdown on April 26, 1986. Authorities from the former Soviet Union quickly established an 18-mile exclusion zone around the abandoned facility.

The fire is already just three miles from a repository for Chernobyl's spent fuel, according to Ukraine's Interfax news service.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk surveyed the inferno from a helicopter and sought to reassure the public.

"The situation is under control," he told reporters, according to AFP. "Our emergency services are actively working to stop the fire spreading."

Related: Wildfires Could Make Chernobyl More Radioactive

The flames have consumed 400 hectares (988 acres) and were reportedly brought under control as of Wednesday morning. Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov raised the possibility of arson in a message that he posted to Facebook.

"There is a reasonable suspicion of an arson attack, as there were outbreaks of the fire in several places on both sides of the river," he wrote. "The patrols have been enhanced: the National Guard and the Interior Ministry's troops have been put on alert."

The threat of wildfires in the vicinity of the plant is well documented. A thousand fires burned within the evacuated area between 1993 and 2010, due in large part to seasonal droughts and forest die-offs because of pests and disease.

A February study in the journal Ecological Monographs warned that fires could release radioactive material into the atmosphere without improved land-use management, posing risks to human health — even to those living far beyond the contaminated zone.

Chernobyl is located 62 miles north of Kiev, Ukraine's capital. The city's branch of the Ukrainian State Emergencies Service reported that so far radiation levels in the area remain unchanged.

"There is no threat of the capital city's contamination by radiation and no danger to the lives and health of people," the agency said.

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