Whether the point of ignition was within the boundaries of SSFL is still being investigated, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Fire Department told Motherboard on Tuesday over the phone. “It may have originated on or near Boeing’s Santa Susana site.” “The source and location of the fire is under investigation by Cal Fire,” a spokesperson for Boeing told Motherboard in an email. “It would not be difficult to monitor the smoke to assess the degree of danger.” “I would be concerned about the fire possibly causing radioactive contamination in the soil and plants to be lofted into the air and drift even farther away from the site, affecting even more people downwind,” Stephen Schwartz, nonresident senior fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told Motherboard in an email. The Department of Energy reported that its areas were not affected by the fire in a Tuesday statement. The portion of the site managed by the Department of Energy contains much of the radioactive contamination, Hirsch added, as this was the former site of the partial nuclear meltdown. Hirsch described the zones managed by NASA and Boeing as being riddled with “exotic rocket fuels” from engine and component testing that lasted from the the Apollo era to the Space Shuttle era. “Fire agencies responding to the site have determined the fire did not present any risks other than those normally present in a wildfire situation,” the agency said. In a Tuesday statement, NASA confirmed “significant fire damage” across its portion of the site, which is jointly managed by the space agency as well as Boeing and the Department of Energy, but doesn’t foresee risks related to contamination. Hirsch was director of the Environmental and Nuclear Policy Program at UC Santa Cruz and now leads the nuclear policy nonprofit Committee to Bridge the Gap, and worries about the Woolsey Fire’s potential release of these contaminants. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health found “no discernible” level of radiation in the area it tested.īut nuclear watchdog group Physicians for Social Responsibility disagrees, warning that noxious and radioactive matter likely spewed from the contaminated ground and into the air.Ī “witch’s brew” of pollution-mercury, chromium-6, lead, and radioactive waste-is contained within the soil there, Dan Hirsch told Motherboard on Tuesday over the phone.
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control, which oversees cleanup of the former nuclear site, told Motherboard in an email on Tuesday that contaminated facilities “were not affected by the fire.” The agency said that measurements from SSFL and the surrounding community “showed no radiation levels above background levels, and no elevated levels of hazardous compounds other than those normally present after a wildfire.”
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