7/3/2011 (Maps) How close is wildfire to Los Alamos National Lab?

Date: 7/3/2011

Friday 7/1/2011 I overlaid the MDA (Material Disposal Areas) and Technical Areas maps from Los Alamos Study Group on top of the GOES data set from the USDA Forest Service to get an idea of how far the Las Conchas wildfire had possibly encroached upon the LANL grounds, to see if the wildfire had possibly already contacted hazardous nuclear and/or chemical/explosive waste.

Here is the composite of the MDA and TA maps as one:

Here is the MDA+TA map overlaid on to the USDA Forest Service GOES data set:

Disturbingly, some of the older GOES yellow fire detection squares above (the square shows a potentially affected area, not that it is actually on fire) span several Material Disposal Areas: MDA-M, MDA-F, MDA-C, MDA-Q, MDA-P, MDA-N, MDA-R, MDA-S, MDA-Z, MDA-Y, MDA-K  Notice that the yellow dot where I am assuming the actual detection occurs falls almost right on top of MDA-Y in TA-39 (Southeast portion of map).

So far the press does not report fires actually reaching any hazardous materials and releasing radiation in to the air.

Here is the MDA+TA map overlaid on the USDA Forest Service MODIS data set:

The MODIS data set shows older yellow detection squares being closest to MDA-M in TA-22, MDA-R in TA-16 and MDA-AB in TA-49.

Due to there not being many recent (red) detections close to the lab grounds it seems as if most of the danger has passed (at least according to GOES and MODIS). Most recent detections currently are primarily Northwest of Los Alamos National Lab.

Click here for previous maps from 7/1/2011 and source material (specific MDA and TA descriptions for example). Note that I only included 0-6 and 0-12 hour detections for that particular day as the older (yellow) detections are likely to be burnt out already.

Note that due to the top secret nature of Los Alamos National Lab, we do not know where all of the hazardous nuclear or chemical waste is located.  Also, radiation can be released in to the air from burning trees which have grown near previous dump or test sites. Decades ago, barrels of nuclear waste were kicked-and-rolled in to unlined pits per Washington's Blog:

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For many years, one method of disposal was “kick-and-roll”. The back of a truck was brought to the edge of a hole and barrels of waste were kicked. Wherever the barrels rolled tow as their final resting place.
...

Following is a good (but several days old) interview with theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku by KOATTV Action 7 News: