Firefighters on Thursday struggled to contain a wildfire accidentally set by the U.S. Park Service that has destroyed or damaged up to 400 houses in the evacuated town of Los Alamos and is threatening a nuclear weapons lab nearby.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (Reuters) – Firefighters on Thursday struggled to contain a wildfire accidentally set by the U.S. Park Service that has destroyed or damaged up to 400 houses in the evacuated town of Los Alamos and is threatening a nuclear weapons lab nearby.
In Washington, the White House said it believed nuclear materials were safe in disaster-proof bunkers at the sprawling Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the first atomic bomb was built in 1945.
Reporters led through the smoky Los Alamos streets saw houses burned to the ground next to others undamaged or singed. High winds blew embers into new spot fires and fanned the flames of smoldering houses.
“You see a street with five houses burned in a row and the houses across the street are untouched,” said Deborah Martinez, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, who toured the scene.
Emergency officials estimated that 115 to 120 homes were destroyed and at least another 180 were damaged, Martinez said.
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