by conscripted military personnel.) It was here that he received his initial training in firefighting, and took the oath of service at the end of his training period. During his time in the Moscow fire department, Ignatenko became involved in fire-applied sports, contributing significantly to his fire brigade's success in competition. Service in the Paramilitary Fire Brigade Ignatenko was discharged at the end of his two year obligatory service on 25 August 1982, and returned home to Sperizh'e. On his return, he immediately began to look for employment as a firefighter in nearby cities. His mother recalled: "After the army, he decided to go to the fire department. He went to Chernigov, and for some reason he was not taken there. Our neighbor worked at the nuclear power plant, and Vasya decided to try it too. From Chernigov he went straight there. He was hired immediately. Not even a month had passed since the army." With his firefighting training and experience, Ignatenko was hired in the city of Pripyat, becoming an employee of the Paramilitary Fire Service, a uniformed, yet civilian-manned, MVD firefighting organization. He soon moved into an apartment in the city fire station, beginning what would be a four-year term of service. During his time with Paramilitary Fire Brigade No.6 (СВПЧ-6), he was promoted to Senior Sergeant, becoming a squad leader. He also continued to be active as an applied-fire sport athlete, becoming known as the brigade's champion. Chernobyl disaster On 26 April 1986, following the initial explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Paramilitary Fire Brigade No. 6 was quickly called to the scene, the call out coming at 2:29 a.m. As Ignatenko was on duty that night, he was among the first 14 duty-watch firefighters from Pripyat to depart for the power station, located a mere away from the city. On the scene, Ignatenko fought fires on the roof of the ventilation building and unit three (adjacent to the destroyed fourth reactor), where numerous small blazes had been started by super-heated pieces of graphite, zirconium, and other components flung from the RBMK reactor during the explosion. Using the unit three fire escape to reach the top of the 20-story structure, he, along with fellow firefighters Vladimir Tishura, Nikolai Titenok, and Nikolai Vashchuck were led by Lieutenants Viktor Kibenok and Volodymyr Pravyk in using water to extinguish these localized fires, while coordinating efforts to run firehoses up