Another person has been named a suspect in the case involving the fire in the Chornobyl exclusion zone, the Kyiv region’s police said.
“An investigator from the Ivankivsky police department, upon coordination with the local prosecutors, named a 37-year-old man a suspect in a case opened based on Part 1 of Article 245 (destruction or damage of the flora) of the Ukrainian Criminal Code,” the police press service said.
The case involved the third fire in the exclusion zone, which began on April 13.
“In the course of the search, officials from the Chornobyl Nuclear Plant zone police, in cooperation with their colleagues from the Ivankivsky police department, promptly identified the arsonist. The man is a 37-year-old resident of the village of Stari Sokoly. The man burned garbage and then he took the remainders of the shouldering fire from the village and put them on dry grass. The dry grass caught fire. The fire spread to the forest and then further to the exclusion zone, where a large-scale fire occurred,” the report said.
The fire destroyed and damaged vegetation and a forest in the Dytiatkivske forestry Pivnichna Pushcha.
The man is facing a fine in an amount of 1,000 to 1,500 non-taxable minimal incomes or up to six months of arrest, or restriction of freedom for up to three years, or the same period in prison.
According to earlier reports, law enforcement officials earlier named a man involved in a fire on the territory of the Kotovske forestry in the exclusion zone a suspect in a crime. The man was a 27-year-old resident of the settlement of Rahivka, who had a criminal record. The man told the police he had set fire to grass in several places for fun.
A 20-hectare wildfire in the Chornobyl NPP Exclusion Zone broke out in the vicinity of the Volodymyrivka village in the Kotovske forestry area on April 4. The wind fanned the flames despite the efforts taken by rescuers, and the fire reached the town of Prypyat and high-risk facilities in the exclusion zone.
The flame approached the industrial site of the Chornobyl NPP’s new safe confinement facility as close as 500 meters because of the wind of gale force on April 13. Fire aircraft performed 227 flights on Monday to dump 500 tonnes of water. Rain helped the firefighters put out the blaze.
