A Sandia National Laboratories building that hosts the labs’ power sources technology programs has mostly reopened after being damaged by a fire last month, though the room where the fire started remained closed as of Wednesday, a spokesperson said.
The Oct. 11 fire involved a lithium battery and forced the evacuation of the aging Building 894, leaving 10 to 12 rooms doused by the fire suppression system and standing water about three inches deep in some places, according to the labs. Fire damage, however, was limited to a single room.
Most of Building 894 reopened Oct. 13, according to a Sandia National Laboratories spokesperson, and additional sections reopened Oct. 18. Crews “cleaned the area and removed potential hazards,” the spokesperson said. No one was hurt in the fire, and no life-extension programs were jeopardized or face delays because of it.
The cause of the remained under investigation, at deadline. No employees were in the room at the time of the fire, the spokesperson said.
Sandia National Laboratories is the engineering arm of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Building 894 houses the site’s power sources technology and aircraft reliability groups and, historically, was home to battery and cell testing and research and development efforts.
Like many others in the nuclear security enterprise, the facility is decades-old and showing its age. Even before the fire, an infrastructure investment plan for fiscal years 2019-23 described Building 894 as deteriorating and host to “regular failures.” A separate report in 2013 said Sandia National Laboratories no longer found Building 894 “adequate to support some future testing.”
Meanwhile, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is looking at building a new Power Sources Capability Facility at Sandia, which the nuclear-weapons agency aimed to finish in fiscal 2026, according to its public strategic roadmap, last updated in May 2020, and its 2021 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, published in December.
