Fire at Scottish nuclear plant

Waste fire reported at Dounreay nuclear decontamination facility

A fire involving low-level waste has been reported at the decommissioned Dounreay nuclear plant.

STV,

13 March, 2014

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it had been informed of the incident on Wednesday by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, which is managing the decommissioning of the site.

The fire at the equipment maintenance and decontamination facility was put out by the on-site fire brigade.

A Sepa spokesman said: “Currently there is no evidence that there has been any release of activity to the environment.”

Last week Dounreay was the focus of controversy when defence secretary Philip Hammond revealed a leak had been found in a nuclear test reactor more than two years ago.

He told the House of Commons that "low levels of radioactivity were detected in a prototype core" at the Naval Reactor Test Establishment at the Caithness facility in 2012.

Sepa was not informed until nine months later and the Scottish Government has demanded an apology from the Ministry of Defence for failing to inform ministers in Edinburgh.

Mr Hammond insisted the event was classified as level 0 on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s scale, meaning no action was required.

He said initially there had been “no measurable change in radiation discharge”, but later amended his answer to specify that there was “no measurable alpha emitting discharge”.