Driven by relentless winds that blew for more than a week, the fire burned upwards of 36,000 acres, displaced 25,000 people and destroyed 261 homes in Los Alamos, N.M., home of the top-secret government lab that built the first atomic bomb in 1945 and still designs U.S. nuclear weapons. Last week the Los Alamos area was blanketed with acrid smoke coming from the Cerro Grande fire, named for a nearby peak where it began on May 4. The irony was that the blaze was deliberately set by the U.S. Park Service to reduce fire risk to the lab–a decision that outraged residents and forced the suspension of Roy Weaver, the Park Service official who approved what was supposed to have been a “prescribed burn.”
The threat was that the flames would reach stockpiles of plutonium and other weapons materials stored on the Los Alamos reservation. That could create a cloud of radioactive smoke–an environmental catastrophe and a powerful health risk to anyone downwind. Federal officials, including Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, said the lab’s radioactive materials were safely stored in concrete bunkers. They also said that monitors showed no increase in normal radiation levels.
But a NEWSWEEK source says the fires came very close to barrels of low-level radioactive and chemical waste in what is known as Technical Area 54, to the east of the main lab complex. In nearby Technical Area 18, a grass fire scorched a concrete structure called a kiva that was long used to handle plutonium. Another kiva in Area 18 contains a small nuclear reactor, the source said. At one point, he said, the fire was so close that the Area 18 security force was forced to retreat up the canyon.
Last weekend, Richardson said the danger to Los Alamos appeared to be subsiding–but just to be sure, the Feds added 600 more firefighters to the force defending the lab. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced he was halting the practice of controlled burning for 30 days, pending a safety review. Interior Department officials said the decision to go ahead with the Cerro Grande burn despite an unfavorable weather report was under investigation. A separate congressional investigation is all but certain, and property losses may reach $1 billion.
