Intense heat and flames roared over the site's
                 underground headquarters, forcing workers to
                 flee to safety

                 LOS ALAMOS (New Mexico) -- A wildfire
                 repeatedly threatened critical nuclear weapon facilities
                 inside the Los Alamos National Laboratory on
                 several occasions last week and was far more
                 harrowing than officials previously had
                 acknowledged, a tour of the site revealed.

                 Nearly 100 firefighters battled most of Friday night,
                 for example, in a fierce struggle to protect a complex
                 where scientists test highly radioactive materials to
                 study how nuclear explosions occur.

                 A day earlier, intense flames and heat twice roared
                 over the lab's underground emergency command
                 headquarters, forcing those inside to flee for safety,
                 according to Mr Stanley Busboom, the lab's safety
                 director.

                 "This whole area was fully involved with flames for the
                 better part of a day," he said.

                 The lab's heavily armed security force also was
                 forced to retreat on Thursday when the fire raced
                 towards the lab's main plutonium storage facility.

                 Firefighting crews battled from sunrise to sunset last
                 Thursday to keep the conflagration from reaching the
                 fortified concrete compound.

                 At one point, flames swept over 25 firefighters who
                 refused to retreat.

                 "We had one heck of a firefight to try to keep the
                 flames away," said Mr Doug MacDonald, the Los
                 Alamos county fire chief.

                 "It blew right over them. ... They had fire all around
                 them, all around them. And they didn't pull out."

                 But officials insisted that the plutonium and other
                 nuclear materials were locked into buried vaults under
                 a heavily reinforced concrete and were never in
                 danger.

                 "Our plutonium facility ... was designed to withstand
                 both man-made and natural disaster," said Mr Gene
                 Tucker, the lab's deputy director of security.

                 Despite efforts by 1,000 firemen, the blaze has
                 spread across more than 14,596 ha of scenic
                 northern New Mexico.

                 "It will be a long time before we get this fire contained
                 ... this fire is going to burn for weeks." US Forest
                 Service fire information officer Jim Paxon said on
                 Saturday. -- Los Angeles Times, Reuters

                       Adapted from The Straits Times, 15 May 2000.