Los Alamos wildfire closes in on "major tritium facility"

Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, like Beyond Nuclear an Alliance for Nuclear Accountability member, posted the following alert on the Los Alamos fire at 6:21 p.m. Eastern, Wed., June 29th:

"Please find an attached screen grab [above] of the most recent Las Conchas Fire map. The relevant point is that it looks like fire has been detected in LANL's Technical Area 16 at the far western corner of the Lab. TA-16 has a major tritium facility and a few locations heavily contaminated with high explosives residues. TA-16 is fairly well forested, but its major facilities have been mostly cleared of nearby combustibles.

One can also see that the NW corner (TA-3) of the Lab and the Los Alamos townsite now appear to be under greater threat. TA-3 is the most employee-populated Technical Area and has many major facilities. However, it is not forested around those facilities.

Data is from satellite infrared surveys completed twice a day, which is overlain on a Google Earth map. The apparent detection time of this screen grab is 9:20 [a.m.] MT June 29. However this wasn't posted by the US Forest Service until ~1:30 [p.m.] MT. Detections are said to be 70% confident (for example, smoke can obscure precise locations).

Nuclear Watch New Mexico has a blog piece for how to get and use the updated fire maps.

http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=838

Jay

Jay Coghlan, Executive Director
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
551 W. Cordova Rd., #808
Santa Fe, NM 87505
Phone and fax: 505.989.7342 cell: 505.920.7118
jay@nukewatch.org, www.nukewatch.org."

Additional Nuclear Watch New Mexico Fire Watch Updates are viewable at: http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?tag=las-conchas-fire.