Thread: N.M. fire threatens Los Alamos lab UPDATE - SAFE

100 evacuated as N.M. fire threatens Los Alamos lab

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — Federal forest officials say a wind-driven wildfire has forced the evacuations of about 100 people in northern New Mexico and the closure of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

U.S. Forest Service officials said early Monday that the fire has burned at least six square miles and is threatening buildings, power lines and natural gas lines. They say it is about one mile southwest of the government laboratory.

Lab officials has closed the facility and say all radioactive and hazardous materials were being protected. The site was founded during World War II to develop the world's first nuclear weapons.

Gov. Susanna Martinez toured the lab's emergency operations center late Sunday.

Los Alamos County authorities have issued voluntary evacuation orders for the towns of Los Alamos and White Rock. Residents from the rural towns of Cochiti Mesa and Las Conchas were evacuated after the fire started Sunday.

Smoke from the fire could be seen in Santa Fe, more than 30 miles to the southeast.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wildfir ... amos_n.htm

Blaze Sparking Fires in Mountains Above N.M. Town, Nuke Lab

Published June 28, 2011
Associated Press

A vicious wildfire spread through the mountains above a northern New Mexico town on Tuesday, driving thousands of people from their homes as officials at a government nuclear laboratory tried to dispel concerns about the safety of sensitive materials.

The wildfire -- which has swelled to about 93 square miles -- sparked a spot fire at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on Monday. The fire was quickly contained, and lab officials said no contamination was released and radioactive materials stored at spots on the sprawling lab were safe.

No fires burned on lab property overnight, but teams from the National Nuclear Security Administration's Radiological Assistance Program were headed to the scene to help assess any nuclear or radiological hazards, said Kevin Smith, Los Alamos Site Office manager.

"The ... teams' work will provide another level of assurance that the community is safe from potential radiological releases as the fire progresses," Smith said in a statement.

The lab will be closed through at least Wednesday, with only essential employees permitted back onto laboratory property.

The wildfire has destroyed 30 structures south and west of Los Alamos, for many stirring memories of a devastating blaze in May 2000 that destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings in town. About 12,500 residents have been evacuated from Los Alamos, an orderly exit that didn't even cause a traffic accident.

Flames were just across the road from the southern edge of the famed lab, where scientists developed the first atomic bomb during World War II. The facility cut natural gas to some areas as a precaution.

The streets of Los Alamos were empty Tuesday with the exception of emergency vehicles and National Guard Humvees. The neighborhoods were quiet, but there were signs that homeowners had left prepared. Propane bottles were placed at the front of driveways and cars were left in the middle of parking lots, away from anything flammable.

Some residents decided to wait out the fire, including Mark Smith, a chemical engineer who works at the lab. He's not concerned about flames reaching the lab's sensitive materials.

"The risk of exposure is so small. I wouldn't sit here and inhale plutonium. I may be crazy but I'm not dumb," he said.

The lab, which employs about 15,000 people, covers more than 36 square miles and includes about 2,000 buildings at nearly four dozen sites. They include research facilities, as well as waste disposal sites. Some facilities, including the administration building, are in the community of Los Alamos, while others are several miles away from the town.

The spot fire scorched a section known as Tech Area 49, which was used in the early 1960s for a series of underground tests with high explosives and radioactive materials.

Lab spokesman Kevin Roark said environmental specialists were monitoring air quality, but the main concern was smoke. He said that the lab has taken many steps to prepare for a wildfire, including thinning trees and underbrush and surrounding key buildings with gravel to create a defensible space. Many of the buildings are also constructed to meet strict standards for nuclear safety and aggressive wildfires are taken into account, he said.

The anti-nuclear watchdog group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety said the fire appeared to be about 3.5 miles from a dumpsite where as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste were stored in fabric tents above ground. The group said the drums were awaiting transport to a dump site in southern New Mexico.

Lab officials at first declined to confirm that such drums were on the property, but in a statement early Tuesday, lab spokeswoman Lisa Rosendorf said such drums are stored in a section of the complex known as Area G. She said the drums contain cleanup from Cold War-era waste that the lab sends away in weekly shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

She said the drums were on a paved area with few trees nearby and would be safe even if a fire reached the storage area. Officials have said it is miles from the flames.

"These drums are designed to a safety standard that would withstand a wildland fire worse than this one," Rosendorf said.

A crew that had been working at the Arizona wildfires took over efforts at the New Mexico fire Monday, about 18 hours after the blaze started.

Another firefighting team was expected to arrive Tuesday because of the potential for the blaze to more than double in size.

"That's the biggest threat we have right now to homes in the community," Deputy Los Alamos County Fire Chief Mike Thompson said late Monday of the spot fires that left hillsides above the town of Los Alamos glowing.

Thompson said containment lines created by firefighters have held despite strong wind.

"We're pretty confident on that front," he said. "We'll pre-treat with foam if necessary, but we really want the buildings to stand on their own for the most part. That is exactly how they've been designed. Especially the ones holding anything that is of high value or high risk, for the community, and really, for the rest New Mexico for that matter."

Many in the area said the current blaze reminded them of the 2000 fire that blackened about 73 square miles and destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings in the western part of the town.

"It took out all the trees and all of the greenery, and it's just now starting to come back," said Terry Langham, a retired lab technician whose house survived the 2000 fire. "Now, it's going to get burned again."

He said that wildfire in 2000 left a "burn scar" that will likely push the current blaze "a little more rapidly through the area."

The 2000 fire prompted the lab and residents to cut down trees and take other fire-prevention measures, and firefighters were hopeful that would help.

"Well, you never are safe when you have such a dry situation and you have fuel load and you have vicious winds like this," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who visited evacuees at the Santa Claran Hotel Casino in Espanola. "When you combine all of those together, (it's) very explosive."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/28/th ... -nuke-lab/

Fire Chief Says Los Alamos Laboratory Is Safe From Flames

Erik Hayden12:31 PM ETComment

This morning, Los Alamos fire Chief Doug Tucker told CNN that the nuclear laboratory nearby an advancing New Mexico wildfire will be safe from the flames: "We feel very comfortable that material is secure," he said. Despite assurances, concerns about the fire's proximity to the Los Alamos National Laboratory have been mounting since flames have forced the nearby town's residents to evacuate and subsequently burned over 60,000 acres. ABC News is reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency is taking action by checking for radiation in smoke plumes:

Such fear has prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to bring in air monitors, along with a special airplane that checks for radiation levels. So far officials have not been able to find anything.

And CNN relays the extra precautions taken on-the-ground at the forty-square-mile nuclear laboratory:

[Fire chief] Tucker said that the waste, which is stored in drums, are kept on a blacktop with no vegetation around and are safe from fire. In case the fire was to close in, firefighters were ready to use foam to ensure that nothing would be released into the environment, he said.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national ... mes/39403/

July 1, 2011 3:47 AM PrintText

N.M. fire grows, but threat to nuclear lab eases

(CBS/AP) LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - The threat of wildfire reaching the Los Alamos nuclear lab and the town that surrounds it eased as crews made progress under cloud cover and rain Friday.

The fire has blackened more than 162 square miles (420 square kilometers) in the last six days, making it the largest fire in New Mexico history. Firefighters were bracing for a hot, dry weekend that makes fighting the flames more challenging.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory — where the World War II Manhattan Project developed the first atomic bomb — remained closed. Fire officials said there was no chance the thousands of evacuated residents and lab employees would be able to resume their normal lives Friday.

Still, the fire chiefs in charge of battling the massive blaze were confident their crews would be able to keep flames from spreading down a canyon that leads to the lab and the town.

Video: Officials test air for radiation as Los Alamos fire spreads

"The way it looks is we made good progress on that side as far as holding the fire from going any farther toward Los Alamos along the canyon," said fire information officer Rick Barton. "The guys are burning out in that area in places trying to strengthen the lines that we have established."

Los Alamos Canyon runs past runs past the old Manhattan Project site in town and a 1940s-era dump site where workers are near the end of a cleanup project of low-level radioactive waste. Workers from the era dumped hazardous and radioactive waste in trenches along 6 acres (2 1/2 hectares) atop the mesa where the town sits.

"The threat is pretty limited," said Kevin Smith, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration site manager for Los Alamos, which over sees the lab.

Los Alamos Canyon also runs through town and a portion of the northern end of the lab, where a weapons research nuclear reactor was located until it was demolished in 2003.

The fire burned upslope at least three miles (five kilometers) from the sites and didn't pose an immediate threat. Fire had crept to within a half-mile (a kilometer) of homes in town.

Lab officials were trying to determine the extent to which thousands of experiments at the facility have been affected by a shutdown caused by the fast-moving fire. Lab Director Charles McMillan said teams will quickly figure out how things stand as soon as they're able to return.

Almost unbelievably, there have been more than 800 fires in New Mexico so far this year and with what promises to be a long, hot and dry summer still ahead, there are no guarantees about this or future fires, reports CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

David Romero of CBS affiliate KRQE reports that close to 12,000 residents have been evacuated this week, and they won't be allowed to return until Sunday, at the earliest.

The lab has been closed since Monday, when the town of Los Alamos and some of its surrounding areas were evacuated. There was no word on when it would reopen. Tucker said Los Alamos residents won't be allowed back home until Sunday at the earliest.

Officials said the lab has some 10,000 experiments running at the same time that have been put on hold.

The delayed projects include studies on materials needed to extend the life of 1960s-era B61 nuclear bombs as well as experiments run on two supercomputers. The lab works on such topics as renewable energy and particle physics, solar flares, forensics on terrorist attacks, and studying the AIDS virus at the molecular level to help scientists develop strategies for developing vaccines.

On Monday, about an acre of lab property burned, raising concerns about possible contamination. Lab authorities, along with outside experts on nuclear engineering, expressed confidence that the blaze would not scatter radioactive material, as some in surrounding communities feared.

Anti-nuclear groups sounded the alarm about thousands of 55-gallon drums containing low-grade nuclear waste — gloves, tools, even paper notes and other contaminated items — about two miles (three kilometers) from the fire.

Lab officials said it was highly unlikely the blaze would reach the drums, and that the steel containers can in any case withstand flames and will be sprayed with fire-resistant foam if necessary.

Meanwhile, lands held sacred by a Native American tribe were being hit by the fire. Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. Walter Dasheno said his people are devastated by the news coming in from the front lines of the firefighting efforts — cultural sites destroyed, forest resources lost and plants and animals that the pueblo's 2,800 residents depend on gone.

"We cried when we saw Mother Nature doing what she was doing to our canyon area. We were helpless," Dasheno said.


He said the tribe has discussed the possibility of evacuating the pueblo if the fire gets closer. Community meetings were being held each day to keep residents informed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/ ... 5991.shtml

VIDEO Officials test air in Los Alamos as fire spreads

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/ ... 5991.shtml

Los Alamos officials plan for return of residents

By P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press –
8 hours ago

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — With firefighters holding their ground against the largest wildfire ever in New Mexico, officials at the nation's premier nuclear weapons laboratory and in the surrounding city planned for the return of thousands of evacuated employees and residents.

The blaze was several miles upslope Friday from Los Alamos National Laboratory, boosting confidence that it no longer posed an immediate threat to the facility.

Thousands of experiments, including those on two supercomputers and studies on extending the life of 1960s-era nuclear bombs, have been put on hold because of the fire.

"I anticipate that we are going to be able to bring the laboratory back up in a way that's smooth and continues to maintain the safety and security that we're responsible for," Lab Director Charles McMillan said.

Authorities didn't give a timetable for when they would lift evacuation order that began Monday for the town of Los Alamos, home to 12,000 people. But some county workers were already back to prepare for the eventual rush of utility service calls, as well as possible flooding from surrounding mountainsides denuded by the wildfire.

Joe Reinarz, a fire official who had also worked at one of the large Arizona wildfires this season, said the fire did not grow significantly on Friday and that containment lines were holding but were no guarantee.

"Everything we've seen this summer doesn't indicate that an old fire is going to stop much. It's unusually dry in the Southwest," he said.

The fire has blackened more than 162 square miles in the last six days, making it the largest in New Mexico history. Erratic winds and dry fuels helped it surpass a 2003 fire that took five months to burn through 94,000 acres in the Gila National Forest.

A key challenge Friday was stopping the flames from doing more damage to the lands of Santa Clara Pueblo. The fire had made a run north toward the reservation earlier this week, hitting the pueblo's watershed and cultural sites.

Santa Clara wasn't the only Indian community feeling the effects of the fire. To the south, Cochiti Pueblo was also worried about damage to ground cover affecting its watershed.

Also, the Pajarito Plateau has hundreds of archaeological sites at Bandelier National Monument that hold great significance to area tribes. About half of the park has burned, Bandelier superintendent Jason Lott said.

"The impact to our pueblos is unprecedented," said U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.

More than 1,200 firefighters were on the lines trying to slow down the flames as National Guard troops, state police officers and deputies patrolled neighborhoods and enforced evacuation orders.

Fire operations section chief Jerome Macdonald said parts of the fire in Santa Clara canyon burned hot while other areas saw less damage because of overnight temperatures and lighter winds.

In Los Alamos, fire officials said that crews worked to keep flames from spreading down a canyon that leads to the lab and the town. Los Alamos Fire Chief Doug Tucker said a small fire lit to remove fuels was steadily burning and being monitored by 200 firefighters.

The canyon runs past the old Manhattan Project site in town and a 1940s-era dump site where workers are near the end of a cleanup project of low-level radioactive waste, as well as the site of a nuclear reactor that was demolished in 2003.

Most of the town's displaced residents have been staying with friends or family. The American Red Cross has set up two shelters where 110 people have been staying.

Evacuees at the shelter at the Santa Claran Hotel Casino in Espanola, about 20 miles from Los Alamos, said the first night was the most difficult because of the commotion of people settling in and getting used to sleeping in a room with dozens of strangers.

"Being alone in my apartment, I know what sounds it makes. My refrigerator kicks on, I hear the footsteps in the hallway. I'm used to that," said Michael Calloway, who took shelter at the casino. After two nights, the evacuees said they have a rhythm that for Cynthia Springer includes picking a spot away from a loud snorer.

"I don't know if I snore," said evacuee Scott Jonze, who lives alone in his apartment in Los Alamos. "But my cat can tell you."

Santa Claran shelter manager Don Hughes said that about 30 people who spent the first night there have found other places to stay.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... 08a8c4d03c

Los Alamos lab prepares to reopen as fire threat eases

By Zelie Pollon | Reuters – Sat, Jul 2, 2011...

SANTA FE, N.M (Reuters) - The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory has ended a state of emergency and was taking small steps on Saturday toward reopening as the threat from a record New Mexico wildfire subsided.

But highlighting the need for continued vigilance, a squirrel sparked a small blaze on lab property on Saturday when it touched a transformer. That fire, which measured about an acre, was quickly extinguished, the lab said in a statement.

Officials have yet to set any reopening date for Los Alamos, but with the risk to the laboratory and adjacent town mostly passed, lab director Charles McMillan said employees were slowly being prepared for reopening the lab.

"We've assessed the risk to the lab to be lower so we've changed the status based on that assessment," McMillan told a news conference.

The Las Conchas Fire consumed an additional 9,000 acres on Friday, and now stands at 113,734 acres, burning primarily toward the north, and further onto the western flank and into the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

A firefighting force of 1,600 people working to douse the flames has now managed to carve containment lines around 6 percent of the fire's perimeter on its eastern and southern flanks, keeping the blaze from invading the lab complex.

Now ranked as the largest wild-lands blaze ever in New Mexico, the fire surpasses the previous record set in 2003 by the 94,000-acre Dry Lakes Fire in the Gila National Forest.

By comparison, the largest blaze in Arizona, the Wallow Fire, has blackened well over 500,000 acres since it erupted May 29 of this year. It is still burning.

At one point earlier this week, the fire's edge was reported just 2 miles from a collection of about 20,000 metal drums containing plutonium-contaminated clothing and other waste stored on a corner of the 36-square-mile lab property.

Nuclear watchdog groups and some citizens had raised concerns about the fire possibly unleashing residual ground contamination left from decades of experimental explosions and waste disposal in the area.

The first employees to return to the Los Alamos lab, one of the nation's top nuclear arms production facilities, would be checking on the facilities, including air handling systems to be sure there was no clogging from the smoke, and bringing IT systems back on line, McMillan said.

A lab spokesman, Kevin Roark, said select employees would start returning on Saturday and that process would continue throughout the week.

McMillan said the status change at the lab would allow resources to be moved away from Los Alamos to focus on other areas, particularly in the north of the state where the fire continues to grow.

Officials have set no time for lifting evacuation orders for the town of Los Alamos, whose 10,000 residents fled earlier this week. Thick smoke lingered over the area.

On Thursday, the blaze had encroached on an Indian reservation to the north, the Santa Clara Pueblo, burning at least 6,000 acres of tribal land, including a number of sacred sites.

But the leading western edge of the blaze remained about 6 miles from the nearest populated areas of the pueblo on Friday, fire officials said at the time.

Firefighters on Saturday were conducting burnout operations to protect cultural and historical sites near the reservation, and archeologists were working with fire crews to minimize damage to sensitive areas, fire information officials said.

Thunderstorms and gusty winds expected on Saturday could spark new blazes or pose a hazard to firefighters, while downdrafts could help the fire spread, they added.

About 150 miles to the south, a separate wildfire caused by lightning blazed in and around the Mescalero Apache Reservation. By Friday morning, the Donaldson Complex Fire had burned some 90,000 acres, including several thousand acres on tribal land, but was 30 percent contained on Saturday, authorities said.

http://news.yahoo.com/los-alamos-lab-pr ... 19493.html

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Los Alamos National Lab To Reopen Wednesday

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