question on 1969 Rocky Flats fire

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA>]

Dear Radsafers,



I spent some time searching the Radsafe archives, but was unable to find an

answer to my question.



Your help would be much appreciated.



The question concerns a dubious (in my opinion) claim in the 1976 book

"Nuclear Power" by Walter C Patterson (a regular contributor to New

Scientist -- hence my scepticism).



Here is a quote from that book :





Some scrap Plutonium had been stored improperly in uncovered cans under a

glovebox in building 776-777 at Rocky Flats. That morning, a Sunday, it did

what plutonium has a nasty habit of doing: it ignited spontaneously, and set

fire to the glovebox itself.



"Glovebox" here gives a misleading impression of size; it was no mere box

but a large chamber, constructed of nearly six hundred tons of combustible

material, radiation shielding included. The heat detectors installed to give

an alarm in such an eventuality had - with stupefying lack of foresight -

been

positioned outside and under the glovebox, so that they were insulated from

the heat until the fire was blazing out of control. When the detectors did

finally sound the alarm at 2.27 pm, the smoke was so thick that the arriving

fire-fighters could barely find their way to the fire.



The smoke, of course, included an impressive concentration of plutonium

oxide; among the materials consumed in the blaze was some $20 million worth

of plutonium. At $10,000/Kg this works out at about 2000Kg - two tons of a

material of which a microgram is likely to be toxic! 



Needless to say, the fire-fighters wore breathing apparatus. Fortunately the

fire did not burn through the roof of the buildings. If it had the

consequences for the surrounding area, including Denver, would have been a

"problem of large scale plutonium contamination" beside which the palomares

and Thule episodes would have been laughable. 



For the fire-fighters the immediate problem was the possibility of

criticality, if they used water on the fire. Because of its effectiveness as

a moderator water is strongly contra-indicated for such occasions. But the

fire-fighters used up their carbon dioxide within ten minuets, and had

nonetheless to resort to water.



It took them four hours to bring the fire under control, and some trouble

spots burned throughout the night.



When eventually, some days later, investigators with breathing apparatus

could survey the radioactive ruins, they assessed the damage at

$45million-plus the $20 million-worth of plutonium.

<END QUOTE>



My question is specifically about the amount of plutonium involved in the

fire (two tons ??) as well as any credible reference sources which may be

consulted for further details of the event.



Thank you very much, in advance.





Jaro



http://www.cns-snc.ca/branches/quebec/quebec.html



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