A Brief History of: The 1957 Rocky Flats Plutonium Fire (Short Documentary)

this video is proudly sponsored by nordvpn more about that later on in the same year that a reactor in the uk satellite another fire in the nuclear industry took place in the rocky flats plant in the u.s the event would go on to be relatively unknown until another fire at the same site was discovered 10 years later [Music] september 11th is a date that has become part of world history however today's subject isn't the 9 11 that normally springs to mind instead a fire in a glove box in a plutonium process building will be the focus for this video i'm going to rate today's subject matter here on a plainly difficult disaster scale located in golden colorado around here on a map the rocky flats plant is situated on 384 acres inside a 6550 acre nature reserve ground was broken in 1951 for a new site to build vital parts for the budding nuclear weapons industry in the united states the construction work in a pittsburgh press article was estimated to cost around 45 million dollars the aec appointed dow chemical company as the plant's operator between 1952 and 1975. the main goal of the site was to produce plutonium pits which form part of the trigger to an atomic bomb a pit is a hollow plutonium sphere that is imploded creating an explosion that triggers the rest of the weapon the demon core was a plutonium pit however it wasn't hollow but instead had two spheres with a ring in the middle the site produced its first pit in 1953 and over the remainder of the 1950s would grow to 27 buildings the facility manufactured most of the triggers for the u.s atomic weapons stockpile that was until 1993 when production was abruptly ended the pits were formed from plutonium buttons which looks pretty much how it sounds as seen here from buttons the plutonium was formed into the hollow sphere needed for weapons production via foundry and machinery work although a vital part in the weapons production process rocky flats was only a link in the manufacturing chain as once the pits were created they were sent off to the pantex facility near amarillo texas not only did the facility deal with plutonium but also uranium and beryllium as well as a myriad of chemicals including carbon tetrachloride used as a cleaning solvent in the manufacturing process the production buildings did not have fire suppression systems due to the risk of criticality instance caused by water forming a moderator but instead buildings were fitted out with little combustible material as possible and this seemed to work in a 1955 chemical explosion which was effectively dealt with this brings us on to september 11th 1957 and building 71 which was used in the process for pit creation as a side note building 71 was the first production building at the site room 180 contained glove boxes used to protect operators from the radioactive isotopes some at rocky flats were up to 20 meters in length with multiple lead line gloves used to manipulate the tools needed for machining and forging the boxes were made of stainless steel had reinforced plexiglass windows and had benelex shielding made of wood fiber and plastic to protect operators from neutron radiation extraction fans were provided to vent air from the glove boxes to prevent any release of radioactive dust multiple filters are provided on route for any material before it goes to building 71's vent stack the ventilation system was equipped with heat sensors which were intended to switch off the fans preventing the spread of a fire which is great however this had been disabled due to false trips slowing down production plutonium can be a fire hazard if handled incorrectly or not stored in a dry environment if in too high of a humidity room the plutonium can form hydrides on its surface which are pyrophoric and may ignite in air at room temperature this risk increases when the material is finally divided for instance in dust such as spontaneous combustion can be a deadly event with the potential to release radioactive particles at 10 pm this such incident began as a small amount of plutonium turnings spontaneously combusted spreading the fire along the plexigrass ten minutes later the fire was discovered the cooling fans were powered up to protect the firefighters from contamination as they attempted to use carbon dioxide to quell the flames however this spread the hot plutonium dust into the filtration system something that the heat sensors should have prevented however this was disabled plutonium burns in a similar fashion to charcoal however the smoldering was a perfect ignition source for the highly flammable plastic within the glove boxes after this failed and faced with an ever building up fire the firefighters used something that they really shouldn't have been using when dealing with plutonium and that was water at 10 38 pm right it's time to talk about this video sponsor nordvpn now if you look up various disasters and atomic incidents like me then a little bit of anonymity is pretty handy needless to 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coupon code plain difficult at checkout to get 70 off a two-year deal plus an additional one month with a huge discount thank you for listening to the advert although it initially stopped the flames which were from the burning plastic and other flammable materials inside the boxes the moisture reached the plutonium increasing its heat there was also a massive risk to achieving a criticality accident as a water would help sustain the chain reaction the air filtration system itself posed risk as the heat and moisture spread upwards by the fans ever since building 71 was first pressed into service the filters had not been replaced and were filled with plutonium dust which was much more susceptible to moisture a minute after water was introduced a loud blast was experienced the force bent the plenum steel frame in doing so spreading the fire into the filtration system the explosion also destroyed the cap at the top of building 71's smoke stack on order of the health physicist supervisor everyone evacuated the building to escape the plutonium contamination which by now had spread throughout building 71. at 10 45 pm fire was now discovered in the vital filter banks on the second floor the only thing preventing widespread contamination of radioactive particles released from the fire as the fire burned contamination spread out from the damaged smoke stack engulfing the surrounding area at 2 am the fire was declared knocked down however it wouldn't be completely stopped until 11 28 am on the 12th of september it was estimated that around 63 kilograms of plutonium was present in room 180 at the time of the fire with 13 to 21 kilograms being involved directly it was estimated that around 500 grams of plutonium 239 and 240 was released into the atmosphere however due to the lack of proper monitoring and almost immediate cover-up these figures are an educated guess at best the contamination was spread by winds and sun was deposited in the soil the material is dangerous once ingested due to plutonium being an alpha particle emitter the highest risk of exposure of the local population was the persons who were exercising or were working outside in areas where the plume of plutonium particles was near the ground however some of the most at risk were the firefighters who for nearly 13 hours were exposed to the deadly plutonium the highest dose was estimated to be 50 milligrams off site the blaze heavily damaged building 71 necessitating the installation of an incinerator in 1958 to dispose of the amount of contaminated material elements such as strontium-90 and cesium-135 were detected as a result of the fire hinting at a criticality event however officials denied that such event had occurred the public wouldn't be aware of the incident for just over a decade until a second fire also involving plutonium was fought also using water the only reports of the incidents in local newspapers claimed that no one was injured and no release of radioactivity was recorded and the damage costs were estimated to be around fifty thousand dollars the cleanup of building 71 started as soon as the fire had ended work resumed on a limited scale before the end of 1957 but cleanup efforts would be continued all the way until early 1962. the building would be pushed back into service being renamed 771 with the whole site continue to produce plutonium pits until 1993 when production was transferred to oak ridge national laboratory this was only after the site was raided by the epa and fbi in 1989 after numerous reports of staff relating to deadly working conditions really the incident in 1957 is only scratching the surface of his radioactive dumpster fire of a place now don't worry i'll be doing another video soon about the 1969 fire and its wider impact on the site and also rocky flats ultimate demise a big thank you to norvpn for the sponsorship if you're interested check out all vpn by going to www.norvpn.com slash play difficult and use coupon code plainly 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Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 362,548

Keywords: Atomic, Nuclear History, Education, Plainly Difficult, rocky flats fire, nuclear incident, demon core, Nuclear, Plainly difficult atomic, Atomic disaster, rocky flats plutonium fire, tales from the bottle, glove box plutonium fire, windscale, atomic industry, Colorado Laboratory, 1957 rocky flats fire, Qxir, Curious droid, history documentary

Id: PhnmmdoC2VY

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 23 2021