One spring day in 1969, Tony Richter stopped for gas on the way to work. When the attendant saw Richter’s name tag and recognized him as a Rocky Flats employee, he immediately asked if everything was alright.
Having just returned from a vacation in a cabin in Coal Creek Canyon, Richter still had no idea that the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant was burning in the worst fire in the plant’s history.
“I immediately went to a pay phone and called my boss. He answered the phone wearing a respirator,” said Richter, 78.
The Mother’s Day Fire, which ignited 40 years ago May 11, highlighted the unsafe conditions in which Rocky Flats workers operated. Although the effects of the fire were initially downplayed to the press, the blaze came dangerously close to causing a Chernobyl-style plutonium contamination.
“If the fire had gotten any worse? I don’t want to think about it,” Richter said, shaking his head.
Workers handling plutonium used “glove boxes,” or boxes with long gloves inside that allowed workers to handle the plutonium inside sealed boxes without touching it.
The fire started in Building 776-777 when plutonium flecks inside a glove box spontaneously ignited, smoldering to eventually burn a hole in the box itself. Heat detectors meant to alert workers to fire conditions had been removed from the glove boxes years earlier to make room for new equipment, according to Len Ackland, local author of “Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West.”
At that time, fires were more than commonplace at Rocky Flats. Between 1966 to May 1969, the plant’s fire department responded to 164 fires. Employees put out countless other fires without ever calling the fire department, Ackland said.
The Mother’s Day Fire was different, however. By the time workers detected the fire, it was completely out of control, shooting a column of smoke into the air that could be seen from US 36.
Bob Carlton, who worked as a monitor at the time, remembers eating a calm dinner when he was called into work.
Workers waved Carlton away from the east entrance to keep his car from getting contaminated. At the west entrance, Carlson donned his contamination suit.
“I expected an explosion at any time and expecting the air lock and double doors to come flying open and hurting us badly,” he said.
Realizing the magnitude of the fire, Carlson considered calling his wife and telling her to pack her things.
“I knew all of Arvada and Denver would be contaminated if this got out,” he said.
After the fire was truly out, almost every worker was required to help clean up the mess.
Richter, a lab worker, was assigned to clean the ceilings and walls, donning “shaky” equipment to enter highly contaminated areas.
During the year he spent on cleaning operations, Richter said he saw his fellow employees “bend over backward” to get Building 776-777 up and running again.
“They realized that if it didn’t get cleaned up, they wouldn’t have a job,” he said.
But tension was building. The fire had been too close of a call.
Richter said he pleaded with his manager to talk with higher-ups and negotiate better equipment and safer workspaces, but change never came. The company transferred him to another department — a move Richter said was meant to “shut him up” about worker conditions.
Dow Chemical “was concerned about fulfilling content, getting the job done. They weren’t thinking of the workers. Safety was second,” Richter said.
By 1970, workers went on strike demanding better salary and working conditions. Workers felt they should be treated better after the way they handled the Mother’s Day fire cleanup, he said.
Richter said he stayed with the company because he truly believed Rocky Flats was keeping the country safe from a potential nuclear war. But worker safety took a hit in the name of national security, he said.
Richter eventually took an early retirement in 1990 after spending 38 years at Rocky Flats. He still keeps in touch with former employees. Many are suffering from cancer.
“People need to know this fire happened. They ought to know workers saved our areas, from where my house sits to Denver,” he said.
Mother’s Day Fire by the numbers
Years since the fire: 40
Pounds of plutonium in Building776-777 the day of the fire: 7,641
Number of reported fires in the two years before the Mother’s Day Fire: 164
Number of workers exposed to radiation that day: 41
Source: “Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West” by Len Ackland