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<h1>Radiation from Idaho fire posed no health risks: officials</h1>
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<div id="mod-article-byline" class="mod-chitribarticlebyline
mod-articlebyline"><span class="pubdate">October 05, 2012</span><span
class="separator">|</span><span>Laura Zuckerman</span> | <span>Reuters</span></div>
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<p> SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Smoke from a wildfire in Idaho
that burned mining sites with traces of uranium and thorium
contained elevated levels of radiation, but none that posed a
risk to human health, state officials said on Friday.</p>
<p> The state Department of Environmental Quality last month
took air samples in North Fork, a town in the burn zone in
east-central Idaho, after the so-called Mustang Complex fire
swept through a former uranium mine and two abandoned gold
mines.</p>
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<p> Health officials said then they believed risks to people's
health was low, and the latest findings back up that assessment.
Residents in the area had expressed worries about the smoke.</p>
<p> Paul Ritter, health physicist with the state environmental
agency, said in the area of the mining sites, smoke from the
fire showed amounts of radiation roughly equivalent to emissions
from a fire in 2000 that charred parts of Los Alamos National
Laboratory, the nuclear weapons design facility in New Mexico.</p>
<p> "The readings are definitely elevated but not out of line with
what has been measured in fires before. It is not a risk," he
said.</p>
<p> Americans are exposed to an estimated 310 millirems of
radiation a year from natural sources, including some rocks and
soils, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.</p>
<p> An analysis of air samples in North Fork showed residents
would have been exposed to 0.5 millirems of radiation in a
30-day period. That compares to a dose of 5 millirems delivered
by a round-trip transcontinental flight, Ritter said.</p>
<p> "Residents certainly weren't in a bad state in terms of
airborne radioactivity," he said.</p>
<p> The Mustang Complex fire has consumed nearly 340,000 acres of
canyon lands and pine forests since it was ignited by lightning
in late July in the Salmon-Challis National Forest.</p>
<p> Even without a danger from radioactivity, smoke from the blaze
has posed a danger to residents, especially the young and the
elderly, because it carries fine soot particles that can worsen
existing respiratory or cardiovascular ailments.</p>
<p> The smoke triggered unhealthy air readings for more than a
month in North Fork and Salmon in a pollution event that Idaho
health officials said was unprecedented for its duration and
predicted impacts on human health.</p>
<p> The findings of no significant risk from radiation did not
ease concerns about exposure for Cindy Hallen, who lives 10
miles from the former uranium operation.</p>
<p> "There are too many unknowns," she said.</p>
<p> Estimates indicate that Idaho wildfires this year already have
been responsible for more air pollutants being released into the
atmosphere than all automobiles and industrial sources in the
state, Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter said in a statement.</p>
<p> (Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Eric Walsh)</p>
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