The Los Alamos Fire Department responded to 34 fire false alarms at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2022 and the obsolete alarm system continues to malfunction in 2023, according to reports from the site.
An ongoing effort to replace the existing fire alarm system at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Plutonium Facility at TA-55, also referred to as PF–4, is scheduled to take several more years.
That program, called the TA-55 Reinvestment Program Phase III, calls for replacement of the “currently outdated … fire alarm system [which] is not compliant with current codes and standards,” according to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) fiscal 2024 budget request.
“All major components of the system are obsolete and difficult to maintain,” NNSA wrote in the request.
The systems are also prone to malfunction, as happened in March when 4,700 gallons of water were sprayed inside PF-4 by a HEPA filter cooldown spray system, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report.
The lab’s operations center reported receiving a signal from a high temperature detector in the housing at the time of the cooldown spray system actuation in PF-4, according to the report.
The Los Alamos Fire Department received notification via a water flow alarm and responded to the March event. When the basement was cleared, there was no evidence of fire, but there was four feet of water in the first stage of the housing, which eventually spread across the entire housing to about one-and-a-half feet deep, according to the DNFSB report.
A similar inadvertent actuation of the deluge system protecting the PF-4 ventilation system occurred in 2019. In neither instance was contamination detected in the water sprayed inside the facility, according to site reports and the DNFSB.
The current system was designed and installed according to fire codes and standards in place in the 1970s when PF-4 began operation, according to an NNSA spokesperson.
“Despite the fact newer editions of design and installation standards are not directly applicable to existing fire alarm systems, interim remedies are in place, including: operational limits, alternative methods for providing equivalent fire alarm notification to occupants, personnel limitations, pre-incident planning, and other restrictions which provide an equivalent level of safety based on industry standard fire hazard and nuclear safety analysis,” the spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor in an April 14 email.
The International Building Code, International Fire Code, and National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code are all enforceable at LANL, the site spokesperson said. Provisions of most common industry codes and standards apply as referenced in the fire codes and DOE/NNSA requirements, as well, according to the NNSA.
“National security missions do not supersede application of the required fire or life safety codes,” the NNSA spokesperson said.
