AIKEN, S.C. — A fire inside the Savannah River National Laboratory set off a Site Area Emergency at the Savannah River Site in Aiken County on Wednesday evening, closing gates to incoming traffic for several hours before officials called it off at 9:45 p.m.
Site officials said the blaze was confined to a single room at the lab and was put out. The U.S. Department of Energy said one employee went to the hospital with minor injuries.
The fire caused what the site described as an unfiltered ground-level radiological release. Surveys afterward found no detectable contamination, and the site said there was no sign of contamination outside the affected facility or past the site boundary.
Workers in the lab area, known as Area A, sheltered in place for roughly half an hour, and staff not involved in the response were held as a precaution. Rail, river and air traffic near the complex was restricted while the emergency was active. Highway 125 stayed open, and the site told employees to report to work Thursday as scheduled.
The laboratory sits in the northwest corner of the 310-square-mile federal reservation, which stretches across Aiken, Barnwell and Allendale counties. Built in the early 1950s to make materials for nuclear weapons, the site now centers on cleanup, nuclear waste management and the disposition of nuclear materials.
Section: More Aiken SC crime news
Filed under: Aiken SC Public Safety News
