Firefighters working against the wildfire that surrounds the nuclear lab in Los Alamos, N.M., have set part of the perimeter of the lab ablaze in hopes of starving the wildfire of fuel in the event it heads back toward the stash of radioactive material stored inside the lab.
After creating a blackened ring that now circles the lab, crews are betting that starting fires to stop them is a gamble that will pay off.
"We are in the best shape we've been in since thing started," Chief Doug Tucker of the Los Alamos County Fire Department told ABC News.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez examined some of the first air-quality tests herself Wednesday. Although they show a lot of smoke, officials expressed relief on discovering no radiation had been released.
"Those results show that what we see in this fire is exactly what we see in any fire across New Mexico," laboratory Director Charles McMillan said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/los-alamos-fire-perimeter-nuclear-lab-set-ablaze/story?id=13964006This is good news. It appears that breathless pronouncements of a radioactive leak in NM were just plain wrong.
Sid