The Sheep Fire at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is contained enough to allow the emergency response to be scaled back, officials said Thursday afternoon.
Firefighting crews will continue to keep an eye on the blaze there are no remaining hot spots, according to an update posted on the INL website.
Fire officials expect the blaze will be 100% contained by Friday evening. Conditions were hazy Thursday evening but no smoke was visible.
“There was no radiological release to the environment, no risk to the public, no injuries and no damage to INL facilities during the fire,” according to the DOE site.
The wildfire has burned 113,000 acres since in the desert area of the 890-square mille Idaho National Laboratory property, making it among the largest ever at the facility. A lightning strike ignited the fire, which mostly burned in areas without people or buildings. No buildings burned at INL.
“In addition to the outside agencies who lent their support during the Sheep Fire, I would also like to personally thank the firefighters who worked around the clock in harsh conditions to contain the fire,” said INL Chief Operations Officer Juan Alvarez.
The Idaho National Laboratory, where more than 6,000 federal and contractor employees work, largely resumed normal operations Thursday.
As a precaution, most nonessential employees were told not to report to work at facilities throughout the site on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the Radioactive Waste Management Complex being a notable exception. Nonessential staff are described as nonemergency workers not needed for safe operation of a facility.
The facilities that largely suspended work work included the Naval Reactors Facility, Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center, the Advanced Test Reactor, and Fluor Idaho’s Integrated Waste Treatment Unit.
Fluor Idaho, the INL cleanup contractor, resumed operations Wednesday at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project and Accelerated Retrieval Project. Workers prepared a few shipments of transuranic waste for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, officials said during the news conference.
With fewer people on-site at the 890-square-mile lab property, firefighters from INL, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and local municipalities worked to control the blaze.
The blaze was dubbed the Sheep Fire because it started near a dirt access road called Sheep Road.
