U.S. Discloses 5-Month-Old Fire at Nuclear Silo

A fire at a U.S. nuclear missile facility went undetected for five days in May before repair crews discovered $1.03 million in damage, the Air Force announced yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2007).

Spokeswoman Maj. Laurie Arellano said the Air Force did not disclose the incident at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., until now because the investigation was only just completed.  The fire joins a string of embarrassing nuclear management lapses for the Air Force, including last year’s accidental transfer of nuclear weapons (see GSN, Sept. 5, 2007), the mistaken shipment of nuclear warhead fuses to Taiwan in 2006 (see GSN, Sept. 26) and the roadside ditching of a Minuteman III missile being transferred to its silo (see GSN, Aug. 12).

These events led to wholesale restructuring of the Air Force’s nuclear management plans (see GSN, Oct. 27).

The May 23 incident was caused by a faulty battery charger that caught fire at Minuteman III silo facility 40 miles east of Cheyenne, Wyo., and 100 miles north of Denver, Colo.  The fire did not enter the missile’s launch tube, Arellano said, and did not threaten to ignite the missile’s solid-rocket fuel.  Following standard U.S. policy, she did not say if the missile was currently armed with any nuclear warheads.

Repair crews responded to a bad-wiring indicator five days later and found the fire evidence, determining that it had burned for one or two hours (Dan Elliott, Associated Press/Google News, Oct. 30).

Yesterday’s Air Force report indicated that some duct tape had been used in the silo, drawing criticism from one nuclear-weapon expert.

“The notion that you’re patching up your H-bombs with duct tape is not encouraging,” said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org.  “You also have to wonder if you have this sloppy activity that is revealed by a fire happened, how much other sloppy activity has not been detected?” (Tom Roeder, Colorado Springs (Colo.) Gazette, Oct. 30).

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