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Talk of the bay

Fire at Progress nuclear plant sets off bullets

By LOUIS HAU
Published January 17, 2005

The pop-pop-pop of small-arms ammunition at a nuclear power plant might raise the specter of a terrorist attack. But Progress Energy Inc.'s 710-megawatt H.B. Robinson nuclear plant near Hartsville, S.C., was not under siege when those sounds rang out at the facility two days after Christmas.

Instead, a fire had broken out shortly after midnight Dec. 27 in a room where handguns and ammunition are kept for the Robinson plant's security personnel. The fire was sparked by an overheated lithium flashlight battery, which caused an unspecified number of low-caliber bullets to pop like firecrackers, according to Progress spokesman David McNeill.

The security room is in a building separate from Robinson's nuclear reactor. None of the bullets penetrated the metal lockers in which they were stored, and no one was in the room when the fire broke out, McNeill said. On-site personnel were able to extinguish the fire within about 40 minutes and no injuries were reported, he said.

Progress is the parent of Progress Energy Florida in St. Petersburg and the operator of an 838-megawatt nuclear plant at its Crystal River power complex. The company reported the incident to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as an "unusual event" because the fire lasted more than 10 minutes.

"From the standpoint of nuclear security, it was minor," NRC spokesman Ken Clark said. "It was a minor event but certainly an unusual one."

[Last modified January 15, 2005, 00:06:04]