Fire Breaks Out at BAE’s UK Nuclear Submarine Plant

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

The fire started after midnight local time 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, the police said, and firefighters were likely to be working for much of the rest of the day.

The police advised residents in the area to keep the windows and doors in their homes shut. They also recommended people driving in the area to 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 the 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 spokesman.

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 American manufacturing of semiconductors.