Fire in EISCAT Svalbard Radar

Yesterday a fire started in EISCAT Svalbard Radar. The fire led to a large incident with several fire-extinguishing units, the police and ambulance being dispatched.

The fire was quickly put out by the EISCAT personnel on site. The cause was due to overheating in a voltage regulator. The copper in the regulator has melted, due to temperatures over 1000 degrees Celsius. As the fire was observed the personnel cut the power to the voltage regulator and hence extinguished the fire. By the time the emergency units reached the station, there was noting more for them to do than to monitor.

Our personnel was sent to hospital for a rutin check due to inhalation of fire gases, but was discharged later the same day.

The damage from the fire was minimal and only located to the voltage regulator in question. The voltage regulator will require repairs as well as remediation of smell, smoke and soot from the station.

EISCAT is grateful that our employees are doing well and that the fire could be tackled quickly after a quick and deliberate intervention by the staff on site.

The staff at EISCAT Svalbard Radar will not be answering any questions from media or other about the incident. Questions about the fire are referred to the communications unit at UiT Norges arktiske universitet: https://uit.no/media#list-item-728734, or the EISCAT Director Axel Steuwer: axel.steuwer@eiscat.se.