Cause of small fire at Test Site is unknown

Friday, June 10, 2005 | 9:26 a.m.

Federal officials said they don't yet know exactly why a small fire flared Thursday afternoon while four Nevada Test Site workers were examining the plutonium-contaminated contents of a drum of stored nuclear waste.

The four workers, wearing protective clothing but no respirators, were working with their hands inside a special glove box inside a building near the southeastern corner of the Test Site, said Kevin Rohrer, National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman.

Each drum containing radioactive elements such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium is opened inside a glove box and inspected and documented before the contaminated material is shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project near Carlsbad, N.M., Rohrer said.

The inspections allow officials to remove items that are not allowed at the WIPP site (such as high level nuclear waste) and document the contents of the drums.

After flames erupted inside the box, the workers pulled their hands out of the glove box and activated a carbon dioxide fire suppression system, Rohrer said.

The glove box also has a reverse-pressure air filtration system designed to contain and prevent releases of radioactive particles.

"The fire suppression system worked as it was designed to work," Rohrer said.

No radiation was detected outside the glove box or the building, he said. Test Site monitors checked the area and the four workers for signs of radioactive contamination, but nothing was discovered.

One worker sprained a finger when he removed his hand from the glove box and was treated at the Visual Examination and Repackaging Building where the fire occurred, Rohrer said.

A black tube 8 inches long by 2 inches wide spilled gray powder into the glove box and its contents before the blaze erupted, he said.

National Nuclear Security Administration officials did not know how much powder was inside the tube before the fire, Rohrer said.

Before an investigation can begin, officials will organize a plan to avoid spreading any contaminated materials during the probe, he said.

About 1,650 drums of the transuranic or mid-level radioactive waste are expected to be moved from the Test Site over several years. Some of the waste is similar to what is stored at the Test Site, but has a higher radiation level that the site cannot dispose of properly.

Drums and boxes of such wastes had been buried in Area 5 at the Test Site, covering 732 acres, officials said.

The Test Site began accepting the transuranic wastes from other sites in the 1970s and ended the practice in the 1990s, Rohrer said.