Texas wildfires force brief shutdown of US nuclear weapons facility [Video]

A series of wildfires across the Texas Panhandle prompted evacuations, cut off power to thousands, and forced at least the temporary shutdown of a nuclear weapons facility, officials said.

On Tuesday night, Pantex – the main facility that assembles and disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal – shut down its operations but said it would reopen for normal operations on Wednesday.

“We have evacuated our personnel, non-essential personnel from the site, just in an abundance of caution,” Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office at Pantex, said during a news conference. “But we do have a well-equipped fire department that has trained for these scenarios, that is on-site and watching and ready should any kind of real emergency arise on the plant site.”

Pantex posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, early Wednesday that the plant “is open for normal day shift operations” and that all personnel were to report for duty according to …