When the 1957 Windscale fire was raging in the Plant the scientists were unsure how to deal with it.
Workers were sent in relays to use scaffolding poles to frantically push out hundreds of fuel cans to try and make a fire break around the fire.
Then they tried to pump in carbon dioxide gas to try and smother the flames, but the heat was such that oxygen was produced from the gas and thus fed the flames to a greater height.
As a last resort the scientists had to gamble on flooding the reactor with cooling water.
The risk they were aware of was that explosive hydrogen and or acetylene gas could be created and then flash over into an explosion.
As this critical decision was being taken the temperatures were climbing by 20 degrees a minute.

Luckily the gamble paid offand the water starved the fire of oxygen and the reactor was brought under control.
Yet even today as the fateful chimneys are slowly taken down by shielded robots the centre of th fire crippled reactor of Pile one still contains uranium and still gives off a gentle heat.
There is still unreleased Wigner energy in the graphite and water hoses are still connected to the charge face as a final safety precaution.
Aren`t we the lucky people to be in the hands of those amazingly bright scientists.