Fire at Savannah River National Laboratory Prompts Site Area Emergency in South Carolina

Officials at the Savannah River Site declared a Site Area Emergency at 5:39 p.m. today, Oct. 28, after a fire was reported at the Savannah River National Laboratory near Aiken, South Carolina.

The fire was in a single room at the laboratory and has been extinguished, according to SRS. A 7:30 p.m. news release from the site's Emergency Response Organization confirmed the fire was out.

What site officials have said

SRS says no contamination has been reported outside the affected facility. An earlier 6:21 p.m. EDT statement said there was no indication of a consequence beyond the site boundaries.

Site officials told Augusta station WRDW there had been "an unfiltered ground-level radiological release." The site has not publicly spelled out what that means: what material, how much, or where it went.

SRS has not confirmed the release of any radiological material in its written releases. Those statements say only that no contamination has been reported outside the affected facility. That wording leaves open whether there is contamination inside it.

Restrictions around the site

As a precaution, barricades at site entrances were closed to incoming traffic. Rail, river and air traffic near the site were restricted.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction citing a "U.S. Gov't Nuclear Incident." It runs until 4 a.m. Friday, Oct. 30, and covers part of eastern Georgia near Waynesboro.

Employees in the laboratory area, known as Area A, sheltered in place behind barricades for about 30 minutes, WRDW reported. They were later allowed to leave, but others were barred from entering. SRS said other employees not involved in the emergency response or shutdown operations were sheltered as a precaution. The partial lockdown was reportedly lifted within an hour of the emergency notice.

SRS officials are directing the response. They have notified the appropriate state and local agencies. Residents are being told to monitor local radio and TV stations, where state officials will announce any actions the public needs to take. No public protective actions had been announced in the site's releases as of its 7:30 p.m. update.

The site

The Savannah River Site is a Department of Energy complex of roughly 310 square miles (198,344 acres) along the South Carolina-Georgia border. It spans parts of Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties. It opened in the early 1950s to make plutonium and tritium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

Today its work centers on environmental cleanup, nuclear waste management and disposition of nuclear materials, according to the Department of Energy. The site includes a plutonium processing facility and a disposal site for spent nuclear fuel.

The Savannah River National Laboratory is one of 17 DOE national laboratories. It sits in the northwest corner of the site.

What remains unanswered

SRS has not said what started the fire. It has not said what material was released, in what quantity, or whether anyone was hurt. It has not said when the Site Area Emergency will be lifted.

The gap between the site's statement of no contamination outside the facility and the reported "unfiltered ground-level radiological release" is the central open question. Only SRS and the Department of Energy can close it with measurements and a description of the release.

SRS says it will post further information at SRS.GOV and on its Facebook page. The FAA flight restriction stays in place until 4 a.m. Friday.