Livermore Nuclear Lab Shut Down by Electric Blast, Fires

LIVERMORE, Calif. — The Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory that employs 8,000 workers was shut down today after an electrical transformer blew up in a fireball seen a mile away, touching off a series of explosions and fires.

The blasts and fires Thursday night at the laboratory followed a power outage that plunged the 500-building complex into darkness, said laboratory spokeswoman Sue Stephenson.

There were no injuries reported and the three fires were put out in about an hour, she said. Damage was estimated at $250,000, most of it at the lab’s main switching station.

The fires were all several blocks from the high-security building where plutonium is stored and did not affect any section of the lab where nuclear materials are kept, Stephenson said.