A wildfire burning near the desert birthplace of the atomic bomb higher on the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste Tuesday as establishment stepped up efforts to protect the site and monitor the air for emission.
Officials at the nation's premier nuclear weapons lab gave assurances that dangerous materials were safely stored and able of withstanding flames from the 93-square-mile fire, which as of midday was as close as 50 feet from the grounds.
A small patch of land at the laboratory wedged fire Monday before firefighters quickly put it out. Teams were on high alert to swoop on any new blazes and spent the day removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab's perimeter.
"We are throwing completely everything at this that we got," Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said in Los Alamos.
The fire has forced the migration of the entire city of Los Alamos, population 11,000, cast giant plumes of smoke over the region and raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste.
"The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they'll burst. That would put this toxic fabric into the plume. It's a concern for everybody," said Joni Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, an anti-nuclear group.
Arends' organization also concerned that the fire could stir up nuclear-contaminated soil on lab property where experiments were conducted years ago. Burrowing animals have brought that infectivity to the surface, she said.
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