Chemical fire injures INL worker

BOISE – Firefighters at the Idaho National Laboratory on Tuesday doused a chemical fire inside the site’s Reactor Technology Complex that sent one worker to a hospital with minor burns and inhalation injuries, officials at the federal nuclear lab said.

Thirty-six other workers also were taken to the medical facility at the southern Idaho facility for precautionary monitoring.

John Epperson, a spokesman for the INL’s joint information center in Idaho Falls, said no radiation was released.

“The public is not in any risk or danger,” Epperson said.

The Advanced Test Reactor, the 40-year-old centerpiece of this 890-square-mile federal nuclear reserve, was not affected. The ATR is inside the Reactor Technology Complex.

The injured worker was pouring about one ounce of red phosphorus powder inside a laboratory fume hood when the material ignited, according to an INL statement.

Firefighters from the INL Fire Department remained at the site to monitor the situation.

Epperson said state, county and tribal officials on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation to the south have been notified of the incident.

The INL is in the desert west of Idaho Falls and is home to three reactors, including the Advanced Test Reactor originally designed to test fuel for nuclear submarines. It’s the site where electricity generated by a nuclear reactor was used for the first time to light a city, nearby Arco, in 1955.