The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state only lost 12 acres to wildfire on the 580-square-mile property during 2022, due partly to controlled burns and other risk reduction steps overseen by the Leidos-led landlord contractor, the agency said Tuesday.
By contrast, in June 2020, a wildfire started by lightning charred 5,000 acres on Gable Mountain near the center of Hanford, DOE said at the time.
Contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS), which is responsible for the site’s fire department, schedules planned burns throughout the year, DOE said in the Tuesday news release.
During winter, the Hanford Site Fire Department Hanford used controlled burns to get rid of 68,000 cubic yards of brush and tumble weed, DOE said in the release. That’s enough dry vegetation to take up three football fields, DOE said.
Hanford fire crews also wrap the bottoms of utility poles with fireproofing material to prevent pole loss and unplanned electric power outages, DOE said. Other risk-reduction steps include training, preparing heavy-equipment and coordinating with the Emergency Operations Center at the cleanup site, DOE said in the release.
