Environment & Energy

caraher

(6,278 posts) Sun Jul 8, 2012, 01:43 PM Jul 2012

Chernobyl's radioactive trees and the forest fire risk

If ignited, one expert likens the potential effect to setting off a nuclear bomb in Eastern Europe. Wind could carry radioactive smoke particles large distances, not just in Ukraine, but right across the continent.

To help establish or disprove such hypotheses, Sergiy has come to Chernobyl to gather data about a very large fire which spread unchecked and destroyed a huge area of Scots pine in 1992. A colleague is preparing a scientific paper on the fire's consequences, which are still largely unknown.

<snip>

Firefighters in Chernobyl have one of the least enviable jobs in the world. They spend all day up rusty Soviet watchtowers, which sway in the wind like tin-box metronomes, and act as conductors to the huge lightning storms which swing across the land most afternoons in summer, often sparking fires.

<snip>

Their equipment is very basic. They believe they know when they are fighting a radioactive fire - they experience a tingling, metallic sensation in their skin - but they do not fully understand the serious dangers of being exposed to superheated radioactive particles.

I kind of think the "serious dangers" are probably just the sum of the dangers of being exposed to superheated particles and the dangers of being exposed to radioactive particles! I also wonder whether there's any physiological basis for this "tingling, metallic sensation" - it seems rather far-fetched to me that this kind of exposure would produce such effects.

From the BBC. I wish there were more quantitative information in the article, but it does bring up the question of ways in which the radioactive debris of an accident might be significantly redistributed.

5 replies

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Highlight:

Chernobyl's radioactive trees and the forest fire risk (Original Post) caraher Jul 2012 OP

Ah, this one again. MattSh Jul 2012 #1

So if it's as safe as you claim... Javaman Jul 2012 #2

What does that have to do with the OP? RC Jul 2012 #3

If you can't answer the question. Javaman Jul 2012 #4

Try rereading the OP again. RC Jul 2012 #5

MattSh

(3,714 posts)

1. Ah, this one again.

Reply to caraher (Original post)

Mon Jul 9, 2012, 09:18 AM

Jul 2012

Boy, the British press really has a thing against Ukraine lately. In May, it's don't attend Euro 2012 because of the racism, you might come home in a coffin. Large parts of that was made up out of next to nothing. Now this.

Some facts.

The zone is a lot less dangerous than 26 year ago. Yes, I've been there.

Radioactive Iodine, half-life of 8 days. No longer an issue.
Radioactive Cesium, half-life of around 30 years. So about half of it is no longer radioactive.
Radioactive Strontium, half-life of around 30 years. So about half of it is no longer radioactive.

There were over 100 radioactive elements released into the atmosphere when Chernobyl’s fourth reactor exploded. Most of these were short lived and decayed (reduced in radioactivity) very quickly. Iodine, strontium and caesium were the most dangerous of the elements released, and have half-lives of 8 days, 29 years, and 30 years respectively.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/features/chernobyl-15/cherno-faq.shtml

So it is an impossibility to have any event occur that is anywhere near as dangerous as the original Chernobyl accident. Unless of course the original accident at the number four reactor or one of the other reactors replicated itself. But that's not likely since the last of the four Chernobyl reactors went offline in 2000.

Now about the probability of forest fires. The largest in the exclusion zone occurred ironically in 1986, effecting 23.36 km2. As a comparison, Somerset Country NJ is 790 km2. So while forest fires certainly can happen, the likelihood of a major environmental disaster is remote indeed. Oh, and that 1992 fire mentioned in the linked BBC article? 5 km2, but only 2.7 km2 of forest. The 2012 Colorado fires? 350 km2. The Chernobyl exclusion zone? 2600 km2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_County,_New_Jersey

I'm not saying that radiation released by forest fires is not a problem. But it will take an awful lot of fires or some really big ones to kick up even 1% of Chernobyl's fallout.

Other problems with this.

1. One (unnamed) expert.
2. Radiation measurement checks, but only for caesium? The quickest way to do a radiation check is to use a dosimeter / geiger counter. And that checks for radiation above a certain threshold. It does not distinguish between radiation from one source and radiation from another source.