The Decline and Fall (cont’d.): Wildfire Rages at Wash. State Nuclear Site. Is there a natural uprising against human nuclear hubris this summer? Grassfires now threaten the Hanford Reservation as they did the Los Alamos National Laboratory last month. Radioactive environmental catastrophe looms, some say, if the winds spread the fire the wrong way through this obscene, contaminated dumping ground. Plutonium could be dispersed in smoke and ash, and radioactive ground denuded of vegetation by the fires could be washed into the Rio Grande by seasonal rains. Public health officials have demonstrated over and over again that they minimize risks to prevent public panic; “serves-you-right” doomsayers (like me) always spin worst-case-scenarios to wag our fingers more dramatically. I’d love to hear some credible, objective environmental scientist’s estimation of the degree and impact of such risks.