Photo: Shutterstock An emergency declared at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has been terminated after a fire at the Savannah River National Laboratory was extinguished.
Site officials declared a Site Area Emergency at 5:39 p.m. on October 28, 2026, at the facility near Aiken, South Carolina. The emergency was later terminated at 9:45 p.m., according to updates published by the Savannah River Site.
Officials said the fire had been extinguished and that no radioactive contamination had been reported outside the affected facility. The major federal complex is currently connected to US nuclear weapons materials.
At the time of the initial alerts, authorities also said there was no indication of consequences beyond the site's boundaries.
Following the termination of the emergency, protective actions were lifted and barricades at the site were reopened. Highway 125 remained open throughout the incident, according to the site's notification system.
SRS said employees were expected to return to their normal schedules on Thursday, October 29. Authorities have not provided further details about the cause of the fire in the latest release.
The Savannah River Site includes a national laboratory and a defense complex overseen by the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
Established in the 1950s to produce tritium and plutonium for U.S. nuclear weapons, the site continues to produce tritium and also manages spent nuclear fuel and stores uranium and plutonium. The laboratory section, where the fire occurred, focuses primarily on research rather than large-scale nuclear material production and storage.