Audit: Firefighters not ready for nuclear lab fire

The Department of Energy's inspector general says Los Alamos County firefighters aren't sufficiently trained to handle the unique fires they could face with hazardous or radioactive materials at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

[concha pena]

Bring in better trained people.

[Huitzilopochtli]

I'm up in Los Alamos. They fire fighters are great. I would question the audit first. Then management. But we aren't going to get better fire fighters.

[LostAgain]

I tend to agree with Huitz. One of the major complaints of the audit was with the contract and the protracted negotiations. The presence or lack of a contract has nothing to do with the quality of the firefighters but rather with the quality of the negotiators.

[Sluggo]

Seems that in the event of a major fire at Los Alamos Labs, the first priority would be to evacuate the entire town to avoid contamination from airborn debris...

Los Alamos Fire Department is probably the only FD in the Nation that has actually ever done this, making them more than qualified.

Life/Safety first.

[CornDaddy]

concha pena wrote:

Bring in better trained people.

Hmmm, was that why $Bill was holding meetings with the N Koreans??? Lol...

[nice]

ygfhgfh

[Sluggo]

So I'm clueless...

The Chernobyl disaster demonstrated how devastating radioactive fallout can be when it becomes airborne by way of a catastrophic fire and the resulting smoke...

23 years later the toll on mankind, flora, fauna, and water supplies are still not fully understood.

My point is that since Los Alamos is probably the only community in the United States that has ever been totally evacuated during the Sierro Grande Fire, that their FD has already dealt with just such a situation.

Regardless, if Los Alamos Labs ever did burn, depending on prevailing winds, the entire Central Rio Grande Valley would be impacted.

This is bad juju...

[LostAgain]

Sluggo wrote:

My point is that since Los Alamos is probably the only community in the United States that has ever been totally evacuated during the Sierro Grande Fire, that their FD has already dealt with just such a situation.

Probably should make that "successfully" evacuated. They've evacuated entire towns/cities elsewhere but I doubt if any were done with no accidents or injuries (okay, one minor fender-bender) as was done here.

[concha pena]

I guessed I burned out, look for me amongst the ambers. Too bad burns destroys truth.

[P and M]

Glad you are back Concha.