When Fire Becomes Routine

Wednesday, June 29, the fire had settled into a routine. The early mornings were hazy, the afternoons were stormy, the sunsets were unusual, the nights were clear enough to see the big dipper from my back porch.

The fire was measured out in daily press briefings, infrared maps of its extent and NASA photographs of its smoke. County officials jostled for their minute of fame. The lab wanted to hunker down, but the new media kept it alert.

Since the last fire, every person who comes on site has a cell phone with a camera and the ability to send instant impressions to friends. I’m sure in the more secure areas there are still many restrictions about the use of such devices, but in other areas where the fire threatened people were probably unencumbered.

I suspect the people in the area didn’t just include the essential LANL (or LANS as its now called) personnel, but the local backhoe drivers and others hired by the lab or county to dig all those defenses they’re bragging about. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone has an opinion.



Paranoia about the lab resurfaced. The Santa Fe newspaper reported the fire “was burning three miles from Area G, where barrels of radioactive waste are stored.” Those became corroding barrels by the time I talked to deliveryman in the city yesterday afternoon.

Others believed the fire was on lab grounds, despite the disclaimers.

The lab responded with a press release describing its efforts to monitor the air. No one, or not many anyway, feared the current nuclear inventory. People have always been much more concerned about what was dumped in the late 1940's and early 1950's before there were procedures to follow, or avoid.

They reported their preliminary samples “show no radioactive materials from Laboratory operations or legacy waste in smoke from the Las Conchas fire.”

Unfortunately, many will remain unconvinced. They’ve learned from things like the beryllium exposure that information that carries the potential for high liabilities is not made public.

Who believes they would tell us about anything less than a serious release? Who thinks it matters that the radioactive profile of the lab’s smoke is not different than that in the area, since most of the smoke is from the same source?

But then, most of us know this and recognize it as the price we pay for the pleasures of living in this part of the country. If it comes it will be horrendous. Otherwise, as they say, less serious than smoking cigarettes, hard drinking or doing drugs.

It’s just another hobby horse, another familiar response to crisis, trotted out with all the others.



Reporters unable to actually report on the fire fell back on the routine. They quoted the fire chief who saw the flames Sunday and thought “Oh my god, here we go again.” They talked to people in Los Alamos who were throwing out flammable materials or watering the lawn, as if either would stop a fire if it reached the town. But familiar activities are soothing.

Another reporter visited an evacuation center in Española to find an elderly woman who said “the fire was an act of God.” Her comments were posted on You Tube with the implication that this was God’s punishment.

No one checked. Her husband, Casey, is a retired lab technician who worked with the Boy Scouts for years on environmental projects. Every year he walks to Chimayó as an act of penance.

If they wanted to find panic instead of stoicism, they could have talked to my boss’s mother who left Cochiti after a spot fire burned a few miles from her house Sunday night.

If they wanted frustration, they could have talked to the Santa Clara who felt the dangers to their lands weren’t being taken seriously.

But those interviews would have broken the routines the reporters used to lull themselves into believing they are doing their jobs.

When a fire becomes routine, the danger is people’s routines are revived to shield them from the simmering crisis.

Notes:
Los Alamos National Laboratory. “No Wildfire on Laboratory Property; Active Air Monitoring Underway,” npsnmfireinfo website, 29 June 2011.

Los Angeles Times. “Miracle Of The Mud,” 16 April 1995, on Casey Stevens.

Stevens, Virginia. Quoted by KOB TV, “Los Alamos Evacuee: Fire act of God,” 28 June 2011.

Tucker, Doug. Quoted by Staci Matlock, “Los Alamos Residents Flee Growing Las Conchas Fire,” The New Mexican, 27 June 2011.

Top picture: Locust trees blowing in the wind to the east, June 29 about 8:18pm.

Middle picture: Black Mesa in front of an invisible Los Alamos, June 29 about 8:58am.

Bottom picture: Black Mesa with the trail of smoke that leads back to the fire, June 29 about 8:17pm.