As New Mexico faces severe drought, Los Alamos National Laboratory brings attention to its wildfire prep

LOS ALAMOS — Domed tents with fire retardant skins conceal stacks of white metal containers filled with legacy nuclear waste produced during nuclear weapons development. The tents in Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Area-G are a temporary home for the waste before it’s sent to permanent storage in underground salt beds in southern New Mexico.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of nuclear weapons, is sandwiched between landscapes dotted with ponderosa pines to the west and piñon and juniper to the east. This property is home to temporary nuclear waste storage and lab spaces for building new warhead components.

A burn scar from the 2000 Cerro Grande fire can be seen near the lab’s Emergency Operations Center. Past fires cost the lab millions in damages and changed its approach to wildfire preparedness.

“This area is meant to burn. It’s part of what we live with ecologically,” said Rich Nieto, program manager for LANL’s Emergency Management Division. But most of the large fires have been human caused, he said.

Wildfire may be part of northern New Mexico’s ecology, but years of fire suppression and failure to adequately thin forests have made them too dense, causing more devastating fires. Ideally, the forests should have 50-150 trees per acre, Nieto said. But the reality for much of the region is closer to 400-1,300 trees per acre. The greatest period of wildfire concern for the lab is late June.

Recently, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order, while urging firework bans and water restrictions, because of severe drought and escalating fire risk across New Mexico.

LANL does not have a firefighting crew. Instead, it has a cooperative agreement with Los Alamos County to utilize its firefighters. The lab does have staff working on fire preparedness, thinning woods and planning for emergencies, and a fixed tank of 23,000 gallons of water fed by groundwater, which was used by helicopters to stop the spread of the 2022 Cerro Pelado wildfire.

Anti-nuclear groups have advocated for more transparency from LANL on fire risk associated with the lab’s property, asking for an unredacted version of the lab’s 2022 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Plan.

“We are concerned that Los Alamos is not being forthcoming about the nature and degree of this risk and how it is likely to change over time,” said Greg Mello, with the Los Alamos Study Group.

On Wednesday, the lab took four New Mexico journalists on a tour of some of its facilities, highlighting its wildfire preparation efforts.

A history of burning

In 2000, the Cerro Grande wildfire — which started as a controlled burn in nearby Bandelier National Forest — torched 43,000 acres, including 7,500 acres of lab property. The laboratory lost 45 buildings in the fire, primarily trailers and storage sheds, including many historic Manhattan Project buildings, according to LANL’s 2022 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Plan. The fire also affected the operational readiness of 237 LANL facilities, caused $331 million in damages to facilities and property, and halted its work for 11 days.

Because of Cerro Grande, LANL identified some critical areas to maintain lower fuel levels of 50-150 trees per acre and improved its communication with other government agencies on fire inspection programs, according to the vulnerability assessment.

In 2011, the Las Conchas fire burned 154,000 acres, including 1-acre of operational laboratory land, causing $15.7 million in damages and nine working days of lost productivity. The town of Los Alamos and the laboratory were both evacuated. The vulnerability assessment credits resilience solutions developed after Cerro Grande with preventing even greater damage.

The most recent wildfire to threaten LANL, Cerro Pelado, was during the devastating 2022 wildfire season, which saw New Mexico’s largest wildfire to date — the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon destroyed more than 340,000 acres. Ahead of Cerro Pelado, LANL crews had already created firebreaks, areas with limited vegetation and flammable materials to slow or stop fires, and thinned forested areas. The lab’s Wildland Fire team had also removed 3,500 tons of forest fuels in the preceding years, the assessment says.

One of the lessons learned from Cerro Pelado was the importance of a resource sharing agreement – the New Mexico Master Cooperative Wildland Fire Management Response Agreement, said Jeff Dare, division leader for LANL’s Emergency Management Division.

Radioactive waste

Technical Area 63 characterizes and temporarily stores newly produced hazardous radioactive waste. It includes six noncombustible metal storage buildings, dedicated firewater storage and two electric pumps for fire suppression. On a weekly basis, the area might receive 20-40 containers of waste. Another fire precaution: no equipment that operates on fossil fuels is allowed in the area, except for the waste transport vehicles. In the case of fire, operations at Technical Area 63 would be halted.

Meanwhile, Technical Area 54, which includes Area-G, deals with old radioactive waste, some from decades-old work on nuclear weapons development. The task of figuring out exactly what is in a waste container before it is sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad for permanent storage is much more challenging, because the record keeping for waste containers in decades past wasn’t always thorough.

There are tools for doing high-powered X-rays of waste containers to make sure there is no liquid or aerosolized cans, and tools for measuring radiation coming out of containers. Before being processed, waste is stored in facilities with a stainless steel layer and extra ventilation.

In Area-G, large domed tents with steel skeletons house processed metal waste containers. The containers have to be at least 15 feet from the walls and there are limits to how much combustible material and radioactive material can be stored in each dome. The domes are equipped with fire detection and suppression, and there are conductors nearby to attract lightning to ground away from the domes, said Brian Clayman, the CH-TRU program manager.

In recent years, storage configurations and lightning precautions have significantly changed and cutting back brush from the area has increased, said Gail Helm, facility operations manager. Another fire precaution: pallets for transporting containers are made of metal instead of wood.

The goal is to get the inventory of legacy waste down as quickly as possible, said Clayman, reducing the overall site risk.

Thinning woods

On a daily basis, the LANL fire crew bakes different fuel types, whether that’s Gambel oak or ponderosa pine, to check for hydration and help evaluate fire danger.

The lab has a different goal from the neighboring Santa Fe National Forest, Nieto said, which is reflected in the density of pines found on each property. While the national forest is trying to preserve a natural area for recreation, LANL is trying to protect hazardous materials and scientific labs from burning.

The lab has 10 masticators, heavy equipment for cutting up trees. After trees are cut down, they are used for lumber or donated to Jemez Pueblo for fuel, Nieto said. The lab is thinning 12-15% of the property’s ponderosa pine forests. Sloped areas are a challenge to trim, and the lab does not cut down trees with a 20-inch girth or greater, unless they pose an explicit hazard. In thinned areas, trees are separated by 15 to 20 feet and lab staff mow brush down to make it less dense.

Journalists were driven by one such defensible space, a Weapons Engineering Training Facility, where trees have been noticeably thinned and, if needed, fire crews can wet down the land then backfire to eliminate fuel.

LANL’s power poles have been coated on the bottom with fire retardant, a lesson learned from the Idaho National Laboratory, which saw multiple power lines burn in the 2010 and 2011 fire seasons, resulting in power outages. The Idaho lab painted its power poles with fire retardant paint ahead of the 2019 Sheep Fire, which effectively protected them from burning. Trees are also thinned around utility corridors at LANL. The 2011 Las Conchas fire began after a tree fell onto a power line.

For its fire prevention, the lab has to work with wildlife biologists to help safeguard habitat for two species with federal protections: the Jemez Mountains salamander and the northern spotted owl. It also has to consult an archaeologist on fire treatment plans, because of archeological sites located on lab property.

Thinning and prescribed burns are the best strategies for fire prevention, Nieto said. LANL is working toward doing its own controlled burns, and expects to begin implementing them in another three years, Nieto said.