Forest fires that raged through Zhytomyr Oblast for two weeks wiped out several small villages, leaving dozens of people homeless at a time when most Ukrainians have to stay home due to the nationwide quarantine.
Fueled by strong winds, the fires erupted on April 16 in the forests of the Chornobyl exclusion zone and the adjacent Ovruch district of Zhytomyr Oblast.
For several days, acrid smoke from the fires blanketed Kyiv, making it difficult for residents to breathe.
In total, the fires destroyed 72 homes in five villages in the Ovruch district.
Set in the middle of a forest that stretches across the border with Belarus, the villages of Lychmany and Magdyn suffered the most. Volunteers have been helping provide local residents with food and clothing.
While fires are not a rare occurrence in Ukraine, extremely dry weather during the winter and spring have exacerbated the fire danger, leading to more blazes of a larger scale than usual.
Magdyn, with a population of 38 people, burnt completely to the ground. All that remains are the frames of stone furnaces towering over piles of bricks and roofing.
Resident Viktoria Platonova, whose house was destroyed, is now staying with a neighbor in one of the few undamaged homes. She said only one beehive survived from her apiary.
“We were promised help to rebuild our homes,” she said. “But we also need tools, masks for beekeeping. Everything is gone.”
In Lychmany, whose population was 47 people, fire also destroyed the majority of homes, forcing residents to take shelter with neighbors or flee to other villages.
“We were told to take our papers. People began to grab everything they could,” a local woman Oleksandra said, describing the moment when the fire reached Lychmany.
“I decided to stay and guard my own and my neighbors’ homes. The fire moved very quickly, at one point it surrounded my home. It was everywhere. Many animals died. But I saved my place and my goats.”
Another resident, Yuriy, who only gave his first name, was not so lucky. When the fire reached Magdyn, he left his home in Lychmany to help fight the blaze. By the time he returned, the flames had consumed his house.
“Here’s the mound where I buried my goats,” Yuriy told the Kyiv Post with tears in his eyes.
“I couldn’t save my house, but I’m glad I could help the others,” he said.
After the 1986 explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear plant, most residents left the two villages, which were located dangerously close to the exclusion zone.
Only a handful of elderly people stayed behind until several years ago, when members of a closed religious community called the Old Believers, who belong to a dissident movement within the Russian Orthodox Church, settled in empty houses. The farm, breed livestock and follow a traditional lifestyle.
Text by the Kyiv Post staff writer Bermet Talant
