Memphis Firefighters Battle Laboratory Blaze

Firefighters battled a blaze Thursday at a laboratory where small amounts of radioactive materials were stored.

The fire broke out at Mid-Continent Laboratories Inc. at 1279 Jackson near Claybrook. The Shelby County Office of Preparedness was still trying to determine Thursday evening whether there was any contamination to groundwater from radioactive cesium-137.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, cesium-137 is used in gauges for industry, but can be dangerous when released into the environment.

Although officials described the radioactivity as "low quantities and low risk," investigators were still assessing whether there was any danger.

In 1999, Mid-Continent was fined $175,000 after state regulators concluded it had handled radioactive material without a license and had lost a potentially dangerous radioactive gauge that later turned up next to a garbage bin in a shopping center in West Memphis.

Daryl Payton, deputy chief of emergency operations for the Memphis Fire Department, said the manager of the laboratory left for lunch, came back and saw the building on fire about 12:10 p.m.

Some local residents said they thought they heard an explosion, but firefighters could not confirm that at the scene. None of the laboratory's nine employees was on the scene when firefighters from Engine 15 arrived four minutes later, Battalion Chief Keith Staples said.

Staples said later that 15 pieces of equipment and about 40 firefighters -- a standard turnout for fires where hazardous materials are present -- extinguished the fire about 12:38 p.m.

"We knew when we arrived there were radioactive materials," Payton said. "We just didn't know where they were, initially. But we pulled back our guys until it was determined to be low quantities and low risk, and then we contained the fire, which never exceeded the outside fire wall.

"It could have been bad," Payton said. "If there had been larger quantities, it would have been an entirely different scenario."

Staples said firefighters from Engine 15 were screened once they returned to base and there were no alarming traces of radioactivity. But he said their suits were washed and decontaminated.

There were no injuries reported in the fire, Payton said. The cause of the blaze was still under investigation.

Copyright 2012 - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service