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On Tuesday, April 14, Ukrainian firefighters contained wildfires that have been raging for more than a week through Chernobyl’s exclusion zone – an area contaminated with radiation from the nuclear power plant accident there in 1986.The fire raged some 19 miles into the zone and was stopped just 600 feet from the Chernobyl plant itself, the BBC reported.Ukraine’s Emergency Situations Service said most of the fire was extinguished, but smoldering sections of forest floor remained throughout western parts of the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone. Rainfall after a weeks-long dry period helped, the agency said.UKRAINE -- Firefighters battle with a forest fire burns near the village of Ragovka, close to the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine, 10 April 2020The fire in Chernobyl came amid the panic over the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting a surge of apocalyptic memes on social media but also raising concerns that smoke and wind could potentially spread radioactive contamination.International media reported elevated radiation levels in the area of the fire.The Associated Press cited a member of Ukraine’s public council in charge of Chernobyl exclusion zone, Yaroslav Yemelyanenko, as saying on Facebook that the situation was critical."The Guardian cited a Facebook post by the head of Ukraine’s state ecological inspection service that included a video of a Geiger counter showing a radiation level 16 times above normal.Reuters reported that aerial images of the exclusion zone around the destroyed nuclear plant "showed scorched
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