A fire in the switchyard at the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant Tuesday night was extinguished by fire crews at the plant within about an hour, but the blaze will mean a costly replacement of a main bank transformer and a further delay before America’s newest reactor is declared a commercial unit.
TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said Wednesday that the transformer fire was discovered at 9:11 p.m. Tuesday night and was put out by TVA crews by 10:20 p.m. Because transformers are cooled by oil and operate in high-voltage switchyards, TVA called in volunteer fire departments Tuesday night from Rhea and Meigs counties and declared the incident “an unusual event” – the lowest of four emergency classifications for problems at a nuclear power plant.
Although the fire did not affect any of the nuclear reactor or generation equipment in either the reactor or turbine buildings at Watts Bar, it did damage a transformer and required TVA to shut down its Unit 2 reactor indefinitely , Hopson said.
“Nobody was injured and there was no risk the the public from the fire, but we are still evaluating the cause and assessing the damage,” Hopson said.
The notice of “unusual event” was terminated at 11:40 p.m. Tuesday night after the fire was put out and TVA assessed that its equipment had performed as planned during the reactor shutdown. But Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Roger Hannah said NRC resident inspectors were still assessing the incident all day Wednesday.