Possible fire temporarily halts chemical weapons destruction at Anniston depot

Tim Lockette
July 01, 2010

A possible fire in a piece of machinery brought work in the chemical weapons incinerator at Anniston Army Depot to a temporary halt Thursday.

“No one was hurt, and no munitions or (chemical) agent were involved,” said Army spokesman Mike Abrams. “The community was never in danger.”

Abrams said an air chilling machine overheated around 4 p.m. Thursday, causing workers to implement their fire response plans. Abrams said he did not know whether the overheating caused an actual fire or just smoke or other indications of overheating.

The air chilling machine is located in a support room next to the processing building – where warheads containing chemical weapons are dismantled and destroyed. Abrams said the machine was part of a larger system that keeps the processing building at a negative air pressure. The facility needs negative air pressure, Abrams said, to keep even a molecule of air from escaping the building in the event of a chemical weapons accident.

The processing building never lost negative air pressure during the incident, Abrams said. While the air chilling machine isn’t “super-critical” to the incineration process, he said, work at the entire facility has shut down until the machine can be repaired.

“It’s like a blown light bulb on the space shuttle,” he said. “You don’t move forward until you are sure that everything is working at 100 percent.”

Abrams said the machine could be repaired as early as 6 a.m. Friday.