At 1432 on May 4, 2005, V.C Summer declared a Notification of Unusual Event (
NUE) due to a small fire in the reactor building that lasted for more than 15 minutes inside the protected area of the plant. The reactor was defueled at the time. There were no injuries, radiological conditions remained unchanged, and no safety related equipment was affected. Personal were not required to evacuate the building and the fire brigade was not activated. The resident NRC inspector and all appropriate state and local officials were notified. There was no radiological release. Details are as follows:
At 1410, a health physics technician noticed smoke in the refueling cavity. Upon investigation, it was noted that a temporary lighting power cord had electrically shorted. The power source was isolated at 1420. The electrical short had ignited a small patch of strippable coating that was applied to the cavity floor for contamination control. The resulting flames were extinguished with demineralized water at 1430. A
NUE was declared at 1432 in accordance with licensee procedure EPP-001, Activation and Implementation of
Emergency Plan. The area was monitored to ensure that there were no further issues and the
NUE was downgraded at 1517.
