For second time in 11 years, smoke from Los Alamos wildfires visible from outer space

An astronaut on the International Space Station, 235 miles up, has photographed the smoke blowing downwind from raging wildfires bearing down on the Los Alamos National Lab (at left). Although federal authorities assure that radioactive wastes, including plutonium, are safe and secure, scores of air monitors have been set up to check for radiation contamination in air, as ABC News reports in a report subtitled "Radioactive Plume Feared." The wildfires are burning within a couple miles of a radioactive waste storage depot containing tens of thousands of 55 gallon drums filled with plutonium-contaminated byproducts of nuclear weapons research and production. A former top security official at Los Alamos National Lab, Glen Walp, said."It's not contained within a concrete, brick-and-mortar-type building, but rather in a sort of fabric-type building that a fire could easily consume... Potential is high for a major calamity if the fire would reach these areas." Walp is the author of the 2010 book Implosion at Los Alamos: How Crime, Corruption, and Cover-ups Jeopardize America's Nuclear Weapons Secrets.