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A 10-minute fire at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant went unreported to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for two months, but TVA believes the incident may not have warranted a report at all.
The fire, which happened Jan. 26 in the control room of Unit 3, was first noticed at 7:08 p.m. and was extinguished at 7:18 p.m., according to a Licensee Event Report submitted to the NRC by Browns Ferry Vice President Keith Polson.
In the report, Polson said operations personnel smelled smoke and observed a flame coming from the bottom of a power supply in an annunciator panel. He said a breaker was opened and the fire was extinguished.
Polson also indicated in the report that the fire did not result in “an emergency action level” or the declaring of a Notification of Unusual Event, commonly viewed as an extreme situation.
Polson said the cause of the fire amounted to a failed power supply and an “overcurrent” caused by an aged capacitor that had not received preventative maintenance. He said similar events occurred in March 2008, May 2008 and July 2009.
TVA spokesman Ray Golden said resident NRC inspectors at the plant were aware of the fire on the day it happened. He said the fire, which amounted to a flame of 2 inches or less, was not initially viewed by TVA as being worthy of a Licensee Event Report, but operators decided to file one anyway.
“You have up to 60 days (to file a report to the NRC),” Golden said. “We weren’t trying to do anything inappropriate.”
NRC Region II spokesman Joey Ledford said the resident inspector immediately responded, but by the time he arrived, “operators had already taken action” to close the breaker to end the incident.
Ledford said the inspector asked the appropriate questions and was told there was neither fire nor damage to any adjacent equipment. The Licensee Event Report, however, said operators “observed a flame” coming from the power supply.
“That was the first report we had received about an actual fire. … We have no explanation for the differing accounts from TVA in January and March,” Ledford said, adding that the incident has been under review since that time. “There is no inspection finding on it as of yet.”
He said there could be a disposition on the incident in the next quarterly inspection report, likely out in August.
Polson’s report to the NRC was dated March 26, or two months after the fire was reported. However, the report did not become public on NRC’s website until earlier this month.
Ledford said the delay for placing the report into the public document system was related to NRC procedures.
“The key is that our resident inspector followed up immediately,” he said.
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