It was initially believed to be triggered by a small fire, but federal officials now say the Sunday night alarm at a waste processing center in west Oak Ridge was set off by smoke.
A ventilation system shut off when the power went out during a thunderstorm between 5 and 6 p.m. Sunday, and that caused a heater at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center to overheat, said Laura Wilkerson, federal project director in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office. [Read more…]