Crews Battle Blaze Near Idaho Nuclear Site

I D A H O  F A L L S, Idaho, July 28 -- Crews gained the upper hand today onan 18,000-acre wildfire that had forced the evacuation of more than a thousand employees at a nuclear facility.

On Thursday, some 1,800 workers had been ordered out of threebuildings at the sprawling Idaho National Engineering andEnvironmental Laboratory, a nuclear research and storage facility.It was the third time this year that a fire has threatened one ofthe nation’s nuclear facilities.

But decreasing winds overnight quelled the flames, and by this morning only 50 firefighters were on the scene in eastern Idaho,putting out a few remaining hot spots.

No one was injured and no radiation release was detected at the890-square-mile compound. Workers were allowed back on the job today.

Fire struck the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico inMay and a huge fire swept across the Hanford nuclear reservation insoutheastern Washington last month.

Both of those fires raised concerns about the potential for release ofradioactive material, from rain washing contaminated soil into NewMexico’s streams or airborne particles in Washington state.

Federal officials have said there has been no danger, though airsamples showed an increased — but not harmful — concentration ofplutonium in public areas outside the Hanford reservation. Idaholab officials said tests were being performed.

Evacuations in CaliforniaElsewhere in the West, wildfires went unchecked in what hasbecome the nation’s worst fire season since 1996.

In California, evacuations were ordered as a fire blackened19,000 acres of the Sequoia National Forest, creeping up to severalhomes on the forest’s borders early today. More than 100 residentswere forced to evacuate the area 120 miles north of Los Angeles. Noinjuries have been reported.

“This fire has shown extreme behavior,” Forest Servicespokesman Tony Diffenbaugh said.

Firefighters, meanwhile, have made progress against two hugefires in Colorado and Montana.