The big Cerro Pelado wildfire outside Los Alamos that has been burning for a month has grabbed the headlines, but it was neither the only wildfire in New Mexico nor the only one near a National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear-weapons site last week.
At the Sandia National Laboratories last week, workers reported the much smaller Lurance brush fire around 11 a.m. on May 17, burning about half a mile from the labs’ Building 9838. Over a two-day effort to beat the fire back, which succeeded on May 18, Sandia decided to evacuate the DOE National Training Center, according to labs’ report about the fire.
The fire wound up burning only about 10 acres, according to Sandia. No one was injured and no property was damaged as a result of the brief blaze.
