Chernobyl Wildfire nearly Extinguished

Firefighters have nearly extinguished a forest fire near Ukraine's Chernobyl plant, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986, the emergency services said on Thursday.

The blaze came within about 20 kilometers (12 miles) of Chernobyl after breaking out Tuesday afternoon, but officials said it posed no danger to the plant and radiation levels in the zone remained unchanged.

The fire has now been reduced to about 70 hectares, down from the 320 hectares across which it had spread near the plant, which is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Ukrainian capital Kiev, the emergency services said in a statement.

The area around Chernobyl was evacuated after the 1986 blast and the last reactor there was shut down in 2000 but some personnel still operate in the exclusion zone, where work is underway to build a new seal over the reactor site.

Officials gave few details of the possible cause of the fire but Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said authorities had not ruled out arson.

The fire struck just two days after Ukrainians marked 29 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.