WHAT ARE THE GUARDS "ARMED" WITH -- FIRE EXTINGUISHERS AND HOSES? OR ARE THE ARMS FOR USE AGAINST THE UN/NATIONAL PARK THUGS WHO SET THE FIRE?

No matter, the militia will be blamed, just like they were for that armory raid in CA prior to rollover.

This is from the Washington Post:

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45351-2000May11.html

Los Alamos Security Raised as Forest Fire Rages

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, May 11, 2000; Page A05

Armed guards were deployed yesterday to protect three areas where special nuclear materials, including plutonium, are stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a week-old forest fire driven by high winds leapt into the canyon around the New Mexico town of Los Alamos, forcing evacuation of its 11,000 inhabitants and setting neighborhoods ablaze, officials said.

"We are in a retreat situation," county spokesman Bill Lehman told the Associated Press late last night, adding that firefighters were running out of water.

The oldest of the nuclear storage areas on the 42-square-mile government facility is burrowed into the wall of a nearby canyon, and the land around it is in danger from the fast-moving fire because it is surrounded by vegetation. The radioactive nuclear material itself is "encased in stone and fireproof," according to an Energy Department official.

Laboratory guards in Humvees, who have been protecting the isolated area from intruders, are expected to be moved to the top of a nearby hill to avoid flames while still being able to watch the storage entryway, according to department sources.

The other areas are near the main laboratory facilities, and their nuclear materials are in flame-proof bunkers.

"People with guns are in position to maintain security," a department source said yesterday.

Los Alamos director John Browne told the Albuquerque Journal on Monday that high explosives at the lab were not in danger because they are buried in cement bunkers with steel doors that survived a fire in 1977.

National Park Service employees set the fire Friday to burn small trees and underbrush in nearby Bandelier National Monument, to prevent a future catastrophic fire. Late Friday, erratic winds sent the blaze out of control, and it has burned nearly 1,000 acres, a New Mexico State Forestry Division spokesman said.

Bandelier Superintendent Roy Weaver said Monday that conditions seemed right for a controlled burn, but the AP reported that a forecast sent to the park said any fire was likely to grow because winds would increase, temperatures would rise and humidity would fall. Weaver said he had not seen the forecast.

A lab spokesman said late yesterday that the fire was moving parallel to the west side of the lab property and that bulldozers had cleared areas around cement bunkers near the flames.

The lab itself has been closed for three days and is not expected to reopen today because winds are forecast to reach 50 mph, making control of the blaze doubtful.

"From the looks of it, it just couldn't be worse," Gov. Gary Johnson told reporters after touring the town yesterday.

The out-of-control fire caused President Clinton to declare Los Alamos a disaster area, eligible for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but emergency firefighting crews and National Guard troops who were rushed in to battle the blaze were told they would have to wait until the wind died down.

"There's nothing we can do now," the Los Angeles Times quoted fire department spokesman Jim Paxon as saying.