40th Anniversary of Mother's Day Fire, Remember the Cold War Veterans

Imagine sitting down to a nice Mother’s Day dinner with your wife and children only to have the phone ring and interrupt your pleasant evening. You answer the phone and it’s your boss telling you to get to work immediately. When you do arrive at work, you wonder if you’ll see your family again. That happened to many young men back in 1969. 40 years ago May 11th (Mother’s Day) there was a fire at Rocky Flats that was almost Denver’s Chernobyl.
At approximately 2 p.m. on May 11, 1969, in Building 776, plutonium in a glove box spontaneously combusted and began to burn slowly, like charcoal. The slow smoldering fire quickly spread to the plastic other flammable components surrounding the already burning plutonium in the glove box. The glove box had its own ventilation system that drew the fire up through it and allowed it to spread further along in Building 776 as well as spread into Building 777. The fire was contained around 6:40 p.m., and by 8 p.m. was determined to be extinguished; a few flare ups did occur well into the evening and the next morning because of the volatility of the plutonium.
Plutonium is pyrophoric, meaning it will spontaneously catch fire when reacted with air or water. When the firefighters went to put out the plutonium fire, they first used carbon dioxide like they were taught to, but it didn’t quell the fire. So a decision was made to use water to put it out to contain it and keep it from spreading. (Water had successfully doused another bad plutonium fire in 1957.) With a whole lot of luck on the firefighter’s side, the water did extinguish the flames and a criticality (i.e. Chernobyl) was avoided.
Many of these men have become gravely sick with an assortment of cancers that no one should ever have to endure, most are already dead. The Cold War Veterans seem to have been forgotten, even though they fought the good fight here at home to keep us safe. Even though Rocky Flats is officially closed, many of the men and women who worked there are getting sicker and sicker because of the work they did to protect us. On this Mother’s Day, while you are enjoying your dinner, remember those who’s dinner was interrupted to keep Denver safe, remember the Cold War Veterans.