On May 8, 2026, a huge wildfire broke out inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone after a drone crashed near the abandoned nuclear site. The fire took off quickly, racing through radioactive forests and wetlands that surround the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Ukrainian officials said radiation levels stayed normal, even while firefighters struggled to contain the flames under brutal conditions. The fire had a lot working in its favor – strong winds, severe drought, and a landscape scattered with landmines and unexploded ordnance. It didn’t take long for the blaze to swallow big sections of woods south and southeast of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
Credit:AP/Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service and the Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve reported that by the morning of May 8, the fire had already covered about 1,100 hectares (11 square kilometers, or 4.2 square miles). Some local officials said later the burned area might actually be as much as 4,000 hectares (40 square kilometers, or 15 square miles).
Radiation levels in the area of the fire remain within normal limits, ranging from 0.19 to 0.35 μSv/h.
Authorities pinned the start of the blaze on the drone crash inside the exclusion zone, but they never confirmed where the drone came from. All throughout the war, Ukraine has accused Russia of staging risky military actions near nuclear sites, including earlier attacks around Chernobyl. In 2025, Ukraine said a Russian drone strike damaged part of the steel confinement structure built to protect Reactor No. 4, the one that exploded back in 1986.
Emergency crews shared images showing thick white smoke pouring into the sky over abandoned forests. Fire teams warned that gusty winds kept driving the flames into new areas – and fast.
“The situation is tough because of dry weather, strong winds, and the danger from mines in certain spots,” Ukraine’s emergency service said. “We’ve had to halt operations in some forest sectors since there’s a risk of explosive devices.”
Chernobyl’s exclusion zone is massive, around 2,600 square kilometers (1,000 square miles), and even now, some parts are still heavily contaminated from the 1986 disaster, which sent radioactive fallout across Europe. Plant workers died right away, but thousands of others suffered radiation-related illnesses and deaths in the decades after.
This wildfire spread mostly in the southern and southeastern parts of the exclusion zone—thankfully not in the most highly contaminated places near the reactor or the ghost city of Pripyat. Ecologist Oleksandr Sokolenko said the fire was burning through pine stands planted 40 to 60 years ago and through dry reed beds around parts of the Pripyat River floodplain.
Extremely dry weather across Ukraine made things worse this year. March and April saw almost no rain, especially in Kyiv Oblast. To add to it, Sokolenko said that water released in advance from the Kyiv Reservoir may have dried out parts of the Pripyat wetlands that usually help keep fires in check.
Once the fire took hold, strong winds rapidly pushed it through thick dry grass, fallen timber, and the dead trees left after years of abandonment and past fires. Experts warned that when fires climb into the treetops – so-called crown fires – they’re nearly impossible to stop unless you have lots of aircraft dropping water, which, right now, isn’t an option.
Radiation readings stayed normal, but people worried anyway—what if smoke carried radioactive particles into the air? Wildfires here in 2020 lasted for weeks and caused temporary bumps in radiation.
Масштабна пожежа в Чорнобильській зоні: у МВС зробили заяву щодо рівня радіаційного фону: Станом на 11:00 8 травня радіаційна ситуація в Україні залишається стабільною. Рівень гамма-випромінювання перебуває в межах норми. Про це повідомили в МВС. За… https://t.co/i3TvnrYOJt
— Головне в Україні (@glavnoe_ua) May 8, 2026
By May 16, new hotspots had flared up south of Pripyat. Shifting winds pushed the smoke north toward southeastern Belarus, which made people living near the border uneasy.
A public warning spread online, telling residents of Belarus’s Bragin and Rechytsa districts to stay cautious while Ukrainian wildfire smoke drifted in. The alert also called out the neighboring Loev and Khoiniki districts as possibly at risk.
People got advice to stay indoors if they noticed smoke, haze, or the smell of burning in the air.
Still, for all the talk of radioactive danger, experts said the immediate threat is mostly ecological, not radiological. For forty years, this area has changed into a rare biosphere reserve. Forests, wetlands, and wildlife have bounced back, mostly left alone since the disaster.
“When fires like this happen, we lose huge sections of forest and so much valuable life – plants and animals,” Sokolenko said. “That’s honestly the biggest risk and the greatest loss.”
Meteorologists said rain could finally be coming, with an atmospheric front moving in from western Ukraine. If it arrives, it might help slow down the fire’s spread for the first time. Until then, emergency crews are stuck battling one of Europe’s toughest wildfires, where radioactive contamination, the scars of war, drought, and wild weather are all colliding into an environmental disaster that just keeps growing.
