![]() The guard reporting the fire telephoned the shift engineer's office rather than calling either of the numbers listed in the procedure." The construction workers first attempted to extinguish the fire, whereas the procedure specifies that the fire alarm be sounded first. "The Emergency Procedure was not followed by those involved when reporting the fire. The appropriate number (299) is the one in the test dialing this number automatically sounds the fire alarm and rings the Unit 1 operator's telephone. The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Emergency Procedure lists two different telephone numbers to be used in reporting a fire, one in a table of emergency numbers and the second in a test of the procedure. However, confusion over the correct telephone number for the fire alarm delayed its being sounded. It was not until one of the electricians told a plant guard inside the turbine building that a fire had broken out that an alarm was sounded. Dry chemicals would extinguish the flames, but the flame would start back up."Īpproximately 15 minutes passed between the time the fire started (12:20 pm) and the time at which a fire alarm was turned in. "The airflow through the penetration pulled the material from discharging fire extinguishers through the penetration into the reactor building. After the second extinguisher was applied, there was a roaring sound from the fire and a blowtorch effect due to the airflow through the penetration. Once ignited, the resilient polyurethane foam splattered as it burned. After the first application of the CO 2, the fire had spread through to the reactor building side of the penetration. Once the foam was ignited, the flame spread very rapidly. "The material ignited by the candle flame was resilient polyurethane foam. In its report on the cause of the fire, the TVA stated: I then used a dry chemical extinguisher, and then another, neither of which put out the fire." Someone passed me a CO 2 extinguisher with a horn which blew right through the hole without putting out the fire, which had gotten back into the wall. This also did not work and we removed the rags. This did not work and then I tried to smother the fire with rags stuffed in the hole. D handed me his flashlight with which I tried to knock out the fire. The draft sucked the flame into the hole and ignited the foam which started to smoulder and glow. D tore off two pieces of foam sheet for packing into the hole. The candle flame was pulled out horizontal showing a strong draft. "We found a 2 x 4 inch opening in a penetration window in a tray with three or four cables going through it. The inspector, "C", describes what happened next: The foam is in sheet form, it is a 'plastic' about 2 inches thick, that we use as a backing material." "Because the wall is about 30 inches thick and the opening deep, I could not reach in far enough, so C asked me for the foam and he stuffed it into the hole. The fire was started by an electrical inspector (referred to in the NRC report as "C"), working with an electrician, "D", who said, The resulting fire, which disabled a large number of engineered safety systems at the plant, including the entire emergency core cooling system (ECCS) on Unit 1, and almost resulted in a boiloff/meltdown accident, demonstrates the vulnerability of nuclear plants to "single failure" events and human fallibility. The electrical engineer put the candle too close to the foam rubber, and it burst into flame. They were also using candles to determine whether or not the leaks had been successfully plugged - by observing how the flame was affected by escaping air. They were using strips of spongy foam rubber to seal the leaks. Just below the plant's control room, two electricians were trying to seal air leaks in the cable spreading room, where the electrical cables that control the two reactors are separated and routed through different tunnels to the reactor buildings. How a Candle Caused a Nuclear EmergencyĪt noon on March 22, 1975, both Units 1 and 2 at the Brown's Ferry plant in Alabama were operating at full power, delivering 2200 megawatts of electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority.Published by Friends of the Earth, California, 1976. The Fire at the Bown's Ferry Nuclear Power Station The Fire at the
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