Forest fires are of special interest for Belarus because of radioactive contamination caused by the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. This work aims to determine the potential activity of long-lived radionuclides in surface air caused by forest fires and to estimate the potential health threat to firefighters. The methodology is based on measurements of radioactivity released by forest fuel materials using a combustion chamber. The emissions were combined with a simple dispersion model to estimate air concentrations and dose to firefighters. The inhalation dose from transuranium elements tend to be an order of magnitude greater than that from Cesium-137. Although there was variability among sites, about half of the total dose was caused by external radiation, as measured by dosimeters. Overall effective radiation dose ranged from 3 to 7 uSv for a 1-h exposure, far below the annual effective dose of 20 mSv for workers and 1 mSv for the public. Although, the risk of exceeding annual effective dose limits is low during small fires, such data are important to inform the population and reduce social and psychological stress caused by popular sources.

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An important component of forest firefighting strategies is related to the accurate prediction of fire risks. This article describes the development process of special decision support system (ForestFire GIS) - for the analysis of climatic conditions and definition of fire risks in Belarus including radioactively contaminated territory. The application consists of two basic modules: fire danger rating module and module of radionuclides transfer during the fire event. Fire danger rating module uses data on daily temperature, dew point and 24-hour rainfall to calculate weather based fire hazard index (FHI). The program provides recommendations for firefighting officials about efficient wildfires suppression strategy. GIS core (based on the MapWinGIS) performs all basic operations with map layers (scaling, moving, geocoding etc.), load and save changes. The ForestFire GIS was tested for the beginning of fire seasons in Gomel region in Belarus.

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