Russian visitors learn about Lab's fire mitigation efforts

Steve Mee of the Cerro Grande Rehabilitation Project (FWO-CGRP) Office, wearing blue jacket, explains to a group of visitors from Russia how Air Curtain Destructors are used. A delegation of fire mitigation officials were at the Laboratory last week to tour Laboratory facilities and hear reports on fire mitigation efforts underway at the Laboratory. Standing next to Mee is interpreter Carolyn Smith. The Air Curtain Destructors are being used at Technical Area 16 to dispose of wood and slash generated from Laboratory fire mitigation efforts. The Air Current Destructors work similar to a home pellet stove by blowing a high-pressure current of air around the fuel as it burns -- making combustion much more efficient than conventional burning and producing almost no smoke in the process as shown in inset photo. The wood burns at temperatures as high as 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The machines can burn up to 20 tons of wood an hour and produce about one tenth of the smoke and particulate material than is normally produced by traditional open burning. Tito Garcia of Air Curtain Destructors of New Mexico Inc. has a contract with the Laboratory to burn wood and slash throughout Laboratory areas. Garcia also is the exclusive licensed distributor of the burners for the Southwestern United States. Last year, a delegation from the Lab and the Los Alamos County Fire Department went to Russia to discuss fire mitigation and suppression efforts. The Russian visitors at Los Alamos were returning that visit. Photos by LeRoy N. Sanchez, Public Affairs

As the delegation of fire mitigation officials from Russia toured the Lab's new Emergency Operations Center at Technical Area 69, a welder with Pittsburgh Tank and Tower Co. works on one of the welds for a 120,000-gallon steel water tank adjacent to the EOC. The tank will provide water for the EOC, but it also will have a fill connection in the event that water trucks need to draw water from the tank. The tank is filled by the long pipe protruding from the top. When the tank is fully assembled, the pipe will rise 120 feet from the ground. Pittsburgh Tank and Tower Co. is a subcontractor to the Austin Co., which is building the new EOC.

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