Nuclear fears in Los Alamos fire
A RAGING fire swept through the New Mexico town of Los Alamos, birthplace of the atom bomb and home to America's biggest nuclear weapons laboratory, yesterday.
Some 18,000 residents of the town, and two nearby settlements were forced to flee. Firefighters who ran short of water were forced to retreat.Officials said that stores of explosives, as well as plutonium and other radioactive material, were protected in fireproof concrete bunkers with steel doors. "We can assure the country our nuclear materials are safe," Bill Richardson, the US Energy Secretary, said. Monitoring had shown no radioactivity in the air, he said.
Still, the fire singed one building in Technical Area 16 of the lab complex, which sprawls over 45 square miles. The flames were quickly extinguished by emergency staff who remained after the lab was closed on Monday. Explosives are stored in Technical Area 16, but several miles from the burnt building.
Armed guards were sent to three nuclear storage sites as an extra precaution against intruders. One was the oldest storage area - where radioactive material is encased in stone in the side of a canyon - which was at risk of catching fire. The laboratory's storage areas survived another blaze that rolled through the area 23 years ago.
The most hazardous substances, including plutonium, were stored in bunkers designed to withstand the crash of a jumbo jet, officials said.
Even so, some environmentalists are concerned that the fire could release small concentrations of radiation if it burns through Bayou Canyon, site of experiments in the lab's early years. The canyon underwent two clean-ups but tests show that trees and plants are still mildly "hot" from strontium-90.
Rising winds up to 50 miles an hour delayed hopes of bringing the fire under control as yesterday wore on. The toll of homes in Los Alamos was put at more than 100 destroyed and 400 damaged.
The laboratory's 8,000 workers were assured their jobs were safe and that they would receive government help to rebuild lost homes. The Government promised an investigation into the error of starting the fire as a "controlled burn" in a national park when wind had been forecast.
-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), May 12, 2000