“There’s got to be more to this, I can’t see how basically metal fuel rods burn, and if they did how they could be extinguished so easily. They would most likely melt and end up like the elephant’s foot under Chernobyl.”
Let’s just say that this is an example of “just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it cannot happen”. Some metals, like depleted uranium, will spontaneously combust when they are sufficiently finely divided, eg; powdered. That’s in air. If the temps are high enough at the point where these metals are exposed, including the zirconium cladding, water can dissasociate into hydrogen & oxygen, just as with electrolysis. That’s a potent explosive mixture right there. But in any event the process supplies free oxygen. And generally speaking, almost anything that can oxidize can, under the right conditions, oxidize fast enough to catch fire or catch fire to what’s next to it.
“Let’s just say that this is an example of “just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it cannot happen”. “
The same holds true for secondary source extrapolation, just because some don’t think secondary sources like the MSM aren’t exaggerating doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Seems pretty clear there have been exaggerations, and probably with the secondary source report of fuel rods “burning”.