Town halls set about radioactive waste site fire near Beatty

Published Tue, Oct 20, 2015 (9:49 a.m.)

Updated Tue, Oct 20, 2015 (12:44 p.m.)

Roads and schools reopened and work resumed at a commercial hazardous materials dump near a state-owned site where buried radioactive waste burned on Sunday.

No injuries were reported, no radiation was detected, and Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly says no other health risks were found during sweeps on Monday by federal, state and local radiological and hazardous waste emergency teams.

Wehrly says town hall meetings are scheduled Tuesday in Beatty and Thursday in Amargosa Valley, the two towns closest to the closed radioactive dump site about 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Hazardous waste repository operator US Ecology reported the fire Sunday afternoon during intense rain and lightning storms in the area.

County emergency management chief Vance Payne says the cause of the fire hasn't been determined.

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