The Sheep Fire, which burned more than 112,000 acres, is the largest blaze ever at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory, a spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.
It eclipsed the old record set by the Jefferson Fire, which in 2010 burned almost 109,000 acres, including 79,000 acres within the INL property, according to laboratory spokeswoman Sarah Neumann.
The roughly 112,000 acres burned represents almost one-fifth of the 890-square-mile Idaho National Laboratory property.
Fortunately, no buildings or structures burned at INL last week, Neumann said. The fire burned grassland and sagebrush on the desert areas within the INL property. “There were a number of power poles that were destroyed,” she said by email. Crews from Rocky Mountain Power and INL are working to replace the damaged electric facilities.
A lightning strike ignited the fire Monday July 22 near Sheep Road on the DOE land.
About 2,000 employees of Battelle Energy Alliance, the INL manager, were either sent home or told not to report to work starting Tuesday, Neumann said. Battelle employs almost 5,000 people at INL, including interns.
Facilities where nonessential staff were told to stay home included the Naval Reactors Facility, Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center, the Advanced Test Reactor, and Fluor Idaho’s Integrated Waste Treatment Unit. Nonessential workers are described as those not involved in emergency response or needed for safe operation of a facility.
Fluor Idaho’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project, and Accelerated Retrieval Project continued operations during the week. Workers at AMWTP even sent some shipments of transuranic waste for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, officials said.
Fluor Idaho currently employs a total of 1,768 people, which includes temporary staff, spokeswoman Ann Riedesel said by email Thursday. As a result of the Sheep Fire, 764 Fluor Idaho employees were impacted by evacuations and work curtailment on Tuesday, July 23, and 439 employees were impacted on Wednesday, July 24.
All site employees returned to work on Thursday, July 25.
The fire was completely extinguished, with no remaining hot spots, by 6 p.m. local time Sunday, Neumann said.
Wildfires are not uncommon in the arid country around the lab. More than 295,000 acres burned on INL property between 1994 and 2017, according to statistics shared by Neumann.
Nuclear facilities inside INL are typically equipped with security fences and fire breaks, emergency officials said during one of several press briefings last week.
