大象传媒

The word "fire" conjures up images of smoke, flames and wailing fire engine sirens.

But if you had looked down at the Sellafield site on 10th October 1957, you wouldn't have had a clue that anything was wrong.

But inside Pile 1 part of听the radioactive core was on fire and staff weren't really sure of the best way to put it out.

Pile 1 today

Pile 1 and Pile 2 at Windscale had been built to make weapons-grade plutonium. This was done by extracting the plutonium from uranium fuel rods within the pile reactors.

But this caused a build up of excess energy in the reactor core which could cause it to overheat if left unchecked. So from time to time this Wigner energy was released by a process called annealing. But the reactors had not been built with annealing in mind.

On October 7th, staff began a routine annealing in Pile 1 which involved slowly heating up the core but the monitors in the core showed an unexpected DROP in temperature. More heat was applied and the monitors started to show the more usual readings. This decision was to prove crucial.

On the morning of October 10th, the monitors in Pile 1 began to show higher than expected temperatures. The filters in the chimney also showed that radioactivity was being released from the reactor.

Victor Goodwin, a graduate trainee at the time described to me how they'd removed an inspection plug to look inside the core and could see it was glowing red. Part of the core was on fire.

The pile was air-cooled and they were in a dilemma. If they turned it off, it could make the fire worse but paradoxically, fires feed on oxygen and so allowing the air-cooling to continue was also potentially dangerous. So they tried to kill the fire with carbon dioxide but it didn't work.

The 大象传媒 Bus is at Sellafield

By the morning of October 11th they decided they would have to try water. There was a danger that the water could have caused an explosion. But deputy works manager, Tom Tuohy stood on top of the reactor building and listened as the water was pumped in. He tells me he had no thought for his own personal safety then or since.

As the water went in, they turned off the air supply to the reactor. The combination of a lack of oxygen and gallons of water did the trick and the fire was eventually put out.

While some believe that a catastrophe was averted, Tom Tuohy believes the fire would have eventually burned itself out. He says the fire was only in one part of the core and had not spread. But he concedes that if they'd left it to burn the release of radioactivity would have been even greater.

Victor Goodwin says the fire should never have happened. He told me that the piles had already done their job and should really have been shut down before 1957.