| Chemical depot reports
small rocket fire By the East Oregonian HERMISTON -- The Umatilla Chemical Depot reported a small fire occurred early Sunday morning during the processing of a rocket. Jim Hackett, public affairs officer for the depot, said there was no danger to the public during the event and no one at the facility was injured. The fire occurred at about 2:06 a.m. Sunday in one of the depot's explosive containment rooms during the processing of an M55 rocket. The rocket's chemical agent, GB sarin, had been drained and the rocket was being sheared apart before being dropped into an incinerator. The explosive containment room was under engineering control so the fire and chemical agent were contained within the room. "It was a very small fire and quickly extinguished," Hackett said. Hackett said this was the seventh fire since November 2004, and it was the fifth to have ignited during the fifth of seven shears. The last fire occurred in December of 2005. Hackett said the explosive containment rooms use robotics and are remotely operated so there is no danger of injury when a rocket fire occurs. Also, modifications made to the explosive containment rooms' fire suppression system last May helped extinguish the fire immediately, thereby minimizing damage to the equipment. Standard procedure calls for halting both processing lines when there's an abnormal incident. Processing resumed in both explosive containment rooms after 12:30 p.m., processing another 240 rockets. "They have learned to assess the damage and get back into operations fairly quickly," he said. A depot official notified the off-post emergency operations centers in Oregon and Washington, including Umatilla and Morrow counties and Benton County in Washington, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Hackett said the final cause of the fires has not been determined, but an Army investigation into the rocket fires concluded that aging propellant, such as nitroglycerine, could be the cause. The study's findings, however, were inconclusive, Hackett said. Hackett also explained that five of the seven rocket fires at the depot, including the most recent incident, have involved rockets from the same October 1962 lot. The two other rockets were from lots produced in July and August 1963. Since processing began on Sept. 8, 2004, the depot has disposed of 56,055 rockets, Hackett said. |
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