More Fire. More Dangerous

LANL Buildings in the foreground

We woke up this morning to the deep scent of burning wood and a sky obscured by smoke again. Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned the Los Alamos Nuclear Facility and wildfires? Yeah. Los Alamos county is under mandatory evacuation.

We are going to have dinner and begin moving our necessities to the RV to prepare for possible evacuation.

We've just received the following e-mail:
*note that the 2000 fire mentioned in the email caused depleted uranium contaminated smoke to reach Taos*

Los Alamos County has declared a state of emergency and ordered mandatory evacuations for the Los Alamos townsite.

People in surrounding communities should prepare to evacuate; gas up your vehicles now. Pregnant women and families with small children should take a precautionary step and evacuate now.

Our main concern is that the Las Conchas fire is about 3 1/2 miles from Area G, the dumpsite that has been in operation since the late 1950s/early 1960s. There are 20,000 to 30,000 55-gallons drums of plutonium contaminated waste (containing solvents, chemicals and toxic materials) sitting in fabric tents above ground. These drums are destined for WIPP.

We understand that LANL has been working since late last night to build a fire line in Water Canyon, between the fire and Area G.

Over the last 26 hours the fire has grown from 0 acres to about 45,000 acres – about the size of the Cerro Grande fire in 2000.

It has moved 12 miles in 24 hours, about two miles an hour.

Remember to take: From: http://lacoa.org/PDF/ESP10/ESP_Bltn_Wildfires2-LACo_0410.pdf

1. People and pets
2. Papers, phone numbers and important documents
3. Prescriptions, vitamins, and eyeglasses
4. Pictures and irreplaceable memorabilia
5. Personal computers (information on hard drives, memory and discs)
6. “Plastic” (credit cards, ATM cards) and cash
   

Please share this email with others.

Pray the Water Canyon fire line will hold the progress of the fire.