300 Firefighters Battling Forest Fires in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Firefighters still battling bush fires in Chernobyl's exclusion zone for over a week now.

Is this another Australia? Let's lend a hand to put a stop to this before its too late.

A 27 year old man has been detained for involvement in the forest fires.

Forest Fires Rage in the Exclusion Zone and Head Toward the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant

Bush fires have been raging in Chernobyl exclusion zones since approximately April 3rd, 2020.

Radiation levels have been intensifying above normal due to these conditions.

Officials have been building firebreaks around the Chernobyl plant as the forest fires continue to make their way toward the nuclear plant.

Forest Fires In Chernobyl

Empty Cities of 2020 During Covid-19

There seems to be a resounding theme lately about empty cities.

I happened to view a Perry Stone video about some empty cities he envisioned in the United States.

If your interested, you could view it on YouTube

As you may know, a global lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic has caused many of our cities to appear empty as citizens have entered into self-isolation. One of the first things I noticed was how quiet the night and mornings are these days.

The main thing not mentioned in dreams or visions of empty cities is that they would not remain empty, but wildlife would likely move into these empty cities over time.

Just as we've seen occur in nuclear dead zones where humans evacuated the areas.

Inside the Exclusion Zone of Fukushima's Radioactive Forest

As we know from Chernobyl and its infamous exclusion zone, Time will reveal all. In many respects, Chernobyl is a radioactive experiment, unfortunately. Even more tragic, is a 2nd nuclear experiment we can now learn from; and, that is from the exclusion zone from Fukushima, Japan: A radioactive forest in the heart of the Fukushima exclusion zone.

Nature Takes Back Our Empty Cities in 2020: A Reflection on Chernobyl

One of the perhaps rare silver linings of the Covid-19 pandemic is how our planet's wildlife is actually benefiting from a global pandemic. Wildlife has been seen entering empty cities everywhere now that city streets are emptied during the Covid-19 quarantine lockdown.

We've also seen a rather quick drop in greenhouse emissions in the atmosphere since humankind has been forced into a mass global lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I wonder if anyone else sees the irony of how the environment and wildlife are actually benefiting from humanity going into the largest lockdown in human history?

(History, the world and our neighboring species could even benefit from our disappearance.....if mankind were to ever disappear...)

This reminds me of what happened in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Due to the regions radioactive contamination for many decades, residents left the area deserted, like a ghost town. In the absence of human activity in the empty ghost towns, local wildlife ended up moving back into the region and taking it over.

 The wildlife could not detect radiation in the environment, just as humans cannot. Radiation is a silent enemy. Slight genetic mutations have been the result, but despite that, the wildlife has managed to flourish in the dead zones of Chernobyl due to humans abandoning the contaminated exclusion zone.

The Empty 'Ghost' Cities of China

We've been documenting abandoned buildings, sites and even abandoned ghost towns for over 10 years but we've never seen anything like the empty cities of China.

Ghost towns normally have meant towns once occupied but through some kind of economic hardship, or some kind of natural environmental disaster, that has rendered the town unable to persist as in its former glory days due to its present hardship(s).

The empty ghost cities of China are notably peculiar in that they've never been occupied, but have remained ghost towns since their inception.

These are abandoned cities from the get-go. It's peculiar. Even surreal.

Why are there Dozens of Ghost Cities in China?

Defending Elena Filatova

Over the last year or so, since we wrote a blurp about Elena Filatova on this blog, I've randomly run across some unsavory words about Elena across the web. It appears some peeps want to think Elena is a fraud.

I'm not buying it. In the first place Elena's photography is photojournalism, it's not piped up with Photoshop for some fraud attack. Get real people. It borders on slander and public slander, and unless you have proof, you shouldn't publish stuff like that.

Lastly, getting permission to enter a site to photograph is not fraud. I have. Other's have. One example we've already published here. And it's actually sometimes the right thing to do in some circumstances.

Breaking and entering doesn't make you or anyone a photojournalist, an explorer or a historian. It's make you a person committing a B and E. And whether Elena had permission or not doesn't take a way one iota of the decade of heart she put into her mission.

Elena Filatova Reminds Us of Chernobyl in Her New Book: Ghost Town

We wanted to write about Elena Filatova, an explorer at heart and creator of a 10-year online journal documenting her explorations by Motorcycle in the dead zone of (and beyond) Chernobyl. We highly recommend her website consisting of 10 years of intimate photojournalism into the behind the scenes story of what has really happened since the nuclear reaction at Chernobyl in 1986.

Her journals and photos are poignant while weaving political history, scientific antidotes, her personal impressions and true life stories of the abandoned people and animals, not only within the dead zone but in hundreds of ghost towns 40 to 80 kms away from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site.

Elena Filatova has made exploring these areas and ghost towns a life long hobby and this year at the 10th anniversary of her website published Chernobyl Photobook ' Ghost Town.' The proceeds go toward the author buying food supplies and essentials for all those still remaining in the irradiated and abandoned ghost towns and villages to this day.

We are also fond of the authors journal 'Land of the Wolves.' And recently, her concerns are for the recent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan:

"Nowadays, we are moving from catastrophe to catastrophe so fast that no one has time to learn from what is happening, thus we are doomed to repeat it all again and again. Each time history repeats itself the price goes up. 

My aim is to take hold of important events I have witnessed and rescue from oblivion deeds that have been forgotten or chosen to have been forgotten. With time, cities perish and the memory of things is lost, so the sole purpose of my work is to preserve memories on the internet forever.

Since the Ghost Town site first went on the Internet in 2003, tens of millions visitors have viewed the Chernobyl information which it provides. This site is maintained by me, the author, and is completely free of all popup ads and spyware. There are no copyright issues. 

Work on this site is my hobby, which I pursue in my free time.""

We can't say enough good things about the authors courageous explorations into contaminated areas, her insights and obvious passion for her cause. In our mind's, Elena Filatova is the epitomy of what it means to be an explorer who explores the abandoned.