Los Alamos nuclear laboratory threatened by wildfire

Efforts to protect New Mexico site stepped up as lab officials give assurances that dangerous materials can resist blaze

Los Alamos residents evacuated over wildfire in pictures

Teams of firefighters are battling to prevent a wildfire in New Mexico from reaching the Los Alamos National Laboratory, America's largest and most important research and development site for nuclear weapons.

The fire that started on Sunday, probably as a result of a downed power line, has forced the entire 11,000 population of Los Alamos to be evacuated and has reached within a road of the outer perimeter of the lab on its south-western and western sides. An acre of vacant land on the south-western border of the lab experienced a spot fire, though that was quickly brought under control.

The wildfire has drawn attention to at least 10,000 drums of radioactive waste dating back to the Cold War era which are being stored in a part of the laboratory known as Area G. The 55-gallon drums are stored three deep on concrete under fire-protected tents.

The management of Los Alamos says that the waste is under little danger following the investment in recent years of $20m of firefighting measures including the thinning of trees and creation of fire breaks.

As a last resort, plastic foam could be used to seal off the drums from incoming flames.

But the prospect of a possible threat to such a sensitive nuclear site has raised alarm in the region, and specially converted planes known as "flying laboratories" are being flown over the area to monitor air quality to detect whether any nuclear particles are entering the atmosphere. No radioactive contaminants have been recorded so far.

"There are fire mitigations at all of our nuclear facilities, and I am confident in our ability to pr! otect al l of them. This is a strong team protecting a national treasure", said the laboratory's director, Charles McMillan.

The lab was created during the second world war as a secret location for the Manhattan Project, the mission to develop the first atomic bomb. It has since grown into a massive research institute with an annual budget of more than $2 billion covering such diverse studies as nanotechnology, computing and space science.


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