May 23 Blaze at Chernobyl Site Reported

A Soviet newspaper today disclosed that a fire broke out May 23 in the building housing the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that was destroyed by an explosion and fire nearly a month earlier.

The newspaper Leninskoye Znamya said firefighters were summoned from as far as 260 miles away and had to take turns running into a high-radiation zone to pour water on the flames to prevent their spreading to an oil storage area.

The blaze took all day to extinguish, it said.

The newspaper, a publication of Moscow’s Communist Party, reported the May 23 fire in the middle of an article about firefighters working at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the northern Ukraine.

No Mention of Cause

It was the first report of the May 23 fire. The newspaper said the blaze broke out in the early morning in the heavily damaged building housing the No. 4 reactor, the one involved in the April 26 disaster.

The newspaper did not say what caused the second fire. It said the blaze began several floors above the reactor itself but did not specify whether it was directly over the reactor.

The delay in reporting the fire was not explained.

The April accident is believed to have killed 31 people and forced the evacuation of 100,000 people from an 18-mile zone around the plant. It released radiation that spread around the world.

Pumping Water Out

Leninskoye Znamya quoted Fire Capt. Nikolai Bocharnikov as saying the May 23 blaze was discovered by firefighters who were pumping water out of the reactor building.

Bocharnikov was quoted as saying he and his men were called out at 2 a.m.

“We received respirators, flashlights and radiation meters and entered the empty station hall,” he was quoted as saying. “Fortunately, the emergency lights were working. Smoke was rising from point No. 12,” the location of the fire.

Bocharnikov was quoted as saying firefighters were afraid the fire would spread to an adjacent structure containing large tanks of oil.