Big fire breaks out at nuclear submarine plant in Britain

By Claire Moses

A large fire broke out at a nuclear submarine plant in northwestern England early Wednesday. Two people were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, according to a spokesperson for BAE Systems, the company that owns the plant, but police said that there was no nuclear risk.

The fire started after midnight l at the plant, in Barrow-in-Furness, England, which produces vessels for the Royal Navy. As of 7:30 a.m., emergency workers were still at the site, police said, and firefighters were likely to be working for much of the rest of the day.

Police advised residents in the area to keep the windows and doors in their homes shut. They also recommended that people driving in the area close their “windows, air vents and sunroof, and turn off fans. Turn off fans and air conditioning if you have them.”

Neither BAE Systems nor local authorities provided a cause for the blaze. The company said that it was working with emergency services at the site and that all its workers had been accounted for. The two employees taken to the hospital had been released by 9 a.m. local time, according to a BAE Systems spokesperson.

BAE Systems employs about 100,000 people across 40 countries and works with many other nations, including the United States. In December, the Biden administration awarded the company a federal grant from a program aimed at shoring up U.S. manufacturing of semiconductors.