Global Security Newswire

Russia has largely extinguished a fire that once covered about 2,500 acres of a nature reserve adjacent to one of the nation's top atomic facilities, a crisis management official told ITAR-Tass on Tuesday (see GSN, Aug. 16).

The flames no longer endangered the Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov, the official said.

“There is no blaze now, but underbrush is smoldering on the area of about [160 acres],” the source said, adding that emergency responders continued to dump water along the eastern edge of the reserve.

Firefighting efforts by park personnel continued in the area with support from local agencies and the Russian Emergency Ministry. Crews have eliminated 11 of the 12 fires in Russia's Mordovia region (ITAR-Tass, Aug. 17).

Roughly 1,000 atomic facility personnel battled the inferno in cooperation with about 3,000 fire responders, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian atomic agency Rosatom, told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today. The workers faced a wall of flame stretched across six miles, the Associated Press quoted him as saying.

"We stopped work at key facilities and removed all nuclear, radioactive and explosive materials," Kiriyenko said in comments aired on television. "Even if the fire had broken into the territory, that wouldn't have posed any nuclear, radiation or environmental danger."

The Sarov atomic site has resumed its standard work, he said. It is said to host nuclear research and weapons production operations.

Wildfires today burned on roughly 69,000 acres across Russia, about an area 20 times smaller than covered at their height earlier in August, according to the Emergency Ministry. More than 50 people have perished in the blazes (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Google News, Aug. 19).

Rosatom plans to increase fire safeguards at its sites, Reuters reported.

“We agreed with [Emergency Minister] Sergei Shoigu to install special robotic equipment to monitor and control systems at our key facilities,” Kiriyenko told Putin.

“And we will also try to install the [Light Detection and Ranging] systems on some of our key facilities,” he added. “It should track any source of fire within 15 kilometers (9 miles) as well as any changes" (Reuters/Khaleej Times, Aug. 19).