CASPER
New member
SANTA FE, New Mexico - Firefighters in New Mexico struggled through Monday night to hold back a fierce blaze roaring out of control at the edge of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a sprawling nuclear weapons complex that includes a plutonium facility.
Flames licked all day at the boundary of the 28,000-acre laboratory site, home to the nation's largest supply of nuclear weapons, as fire crews scurried to douse spot fires carried onto the grounds by winds from the leading edge of the blaze.
The laboratory was shut down, and the adjacent town of Los Alamos, home to about 12,000 people, was placed under a mandatory evacuation earlier.
But lab officials said on Monday night that radioactive and hazardous materials were safely beyond the fire's reach, and that efforts in recent years to clear the area of dry brush and other potential "ground fuels" had paid off in helping firefighters keep the blaze at bay.
The facility has called in special teams to track readings from a network of 60 monitoring stations that measure levels of substances such as plutonium and uranium in the air "as a precaution," said lab director Charles McMillan.
"The health and safety of this community and our neighbors is our highest priority," he said.
Earlier in the day, Los Alamos National Laboratory and National Nuclear Security Administration officials briefed members of New Mexico's congressional delegation, as well as Governor Susana Martinez, about the fire's potential impacts on the lab.
As of late Monday, the so-called Las Conchas Fire had scorched more than 50,000 acres in and around the Santa Fe National Forest, creeping to within 4 miles of the center of the town of Los Alamos, Lujan said.
In addition to trying to carve containment lines around the outer flanks of the blaze, a key focus of firefighting efforts was in holding the line against spot blazes that occasionally edged over State Highway 4 and onto the property of the national laboratory.
At least once ground crews had to work for two hours to extinguish flames that burned about an acre of the laboratory grounds near the southwest boundary of the site, located some 25 miles outside of Santa Fe.
Flames licked all day at the boundary of the 28,000-acre laboratory site, home to the nation's largest supply of nuclear weapons, as fire crews scurried to douse spot fires carried onto the grounds by winds from the leading edge of the blaze.
The laboratory was shut down, and the adjacent town of Los Alamos, home to about 12,000 people, was placed under a mandatory evacuation earlier.
But lab officials said on Monday night that radioactive and hazardous materials were safely beyond the fire's reach, and that efforts in recent years to clear the area of dry brush and other potential "ground fuels" had paid off in helping firefighters keep the blaze at bay.
The facility has called in special teams to track readings from a network of 60 monitoring stations that measure levels of substances such as plutonium and uranium in the air "as a precaution," said lab director Charles McMillan.
"The health and safety of this community and our neighbors is our highest priority," he said.
Earlier in the day, Los Alamos National Laboratory and National Nuclear Security Administration officials briefed members of New Mexico's congressional delegation, as well as Governor Susana Martinez, about the fire's potential impacts on the lab.
As of late Monday, the so-called Las Conchas Fire had scorched more than 50,000 acres in and around the Santa Fe National Forest, creeping to within 4 miles of the center of the town of Los Alamos, Lujan said.
In addition to trying to carve containment lines around the outer flanks of the blaze, a key focus of firefighting efforts was in holding the line against spot blazes that occasionally edged over State Highway 4 and onto the property of the national laboratory.
At least once ground crews had to work for two hours to extinguish flames that burned about an acre of the laboratory grounds near the southwest boundary of the site, located some 25 miles outside of Santa Fe.