Well Started in Fairfax Sector to Burn Off Gas : 4-Square-Block Area Remains Closed; Raging Fires Could Continue for Weeks, Official Says

Four square blocks of the Fairfax shopping district remained closed Monday as workers began digging a well to burn off methane gas that exploded Sunday afternoon, demolishing one store, injuring 22 people and opening fire-belching fissures in the earth.

Those fires were still raging more than 24 hours later, and no one was willing--or able--to predict when they might be extinguished, though one fire official said it could take “weeks or months.”

“We’re not even trying to put them out,” said Los Angeles Deputy Fire Chief Craig Drummond. “We want them to burn--it’s the safest thing they can do, for now.”

6 Remain Hospitalized

And the damage continued to mount:

No one was killed in the blast that destroyed the building occupied by the Ross Dress for Less discount clothing company in the 6200 block of West 3rd Street at 4:47 p.m. Sunday--but two people were still in critical condition and four others remained hospitalized.

Damage to the clothing store and other buildings in the vicinity was estimated by Fire Department authorities at $400,000--but 160 stores in the vicinity, including the world-famous Farmers Market, were closed with an officially estimated loss for the day of $500,000. Fire officials said they may have to remain closed for an indefinite period.

CBS Television City, also in the vicinity, remained open--but the Hancock Park Elementary School, south of the blast site, was closed “until further notice.”

And traffic in the vicinity of the normally crowded 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue intersection remained snarled throughout the day.

The cause of the explosion, origi nally attributed to a leaking commercial natural gas line, was later determined to be an areawide leak of methane from an abandoned oil field in the area.

Fire Department spokesman Tony DiDomenico said a “naturally occurring shift in the earth’s subsurface clay dome may have allowed the methane to escape” and seep into the basement of the clothing store, where it was touched off by a stray electrical or other spark.

But identifying the problem and dealing with it are two very different matters, he said.

About 50 people from various public agencies and representatives of business interests in the vicinity of the blast met for two hours at Fire Station 27 in Hollywood to assess the situation and make plans for dealing with it.

Drummond, who was present, said it was quickly apparent that normal firefighting methods would not control the flames leaping from cracks in the earth, and experts finally determined that the only effective method would be to drill five shallow wells in the immediate area, to draw off the gas and burn it safely in order to reduce the pressure from below.

Job Farmed Out

In the end, he said, it was decided to turn that job over to the county Flood Control District.

The equipment--water-operated drills to reduce the possibility of a spark that might lead to new explosions--was borrowed from McFarland Energy Co., which has operations in the vicinity, and workers began moving the tools to the drilling site--the parking lot of the wrecked clothing store--during the afternoon.

Drilling was to have begun at 6 p.m. But a key part of the portable rig was missing, no replacement was immediately available, and the operation was stalled while it was being located. Flood Control spokesman Darrel Taylor later said considerable welding and adapting of tools was necessary before work could begin.

Drilling finally began at 9:55 p.m., and Taylor said authorities hoped to complete the first of the wells before sunset tonight.

Once the wells are drilled, Drummond explained, the gas will be piped up to the surface and burned off--”flared”--safely, as is the practice in many oil fields.

When the pressure from below the surface is sufficiently reduced that readings drop below the recognized danger level, he said, businesses in the area should be able to reopen.

But he could offer no real estimate of when that might be.

“The gas could take weeks--or months--to burn off,” he said. “There is just no way we can predict it, because we haven’t any real idea of how much gas is down there, or how it may be situated.”

Could Be Extensive

With luck, he said, there might be very little. But it is also possible that the gas is in multiple pockets, containing “several million cubic feet” anywhere from eight to 36 feet below the surface.

That was bad news for businessmen.

City Councilman John Ferraro, in whose district the blast occurred, was present at the fire station meeting and said business representatives there had determined that they were losing $500,000 in gross receipts every day they remained closed.

“That doesn’t count the possible damage from the explosions that have already happened, or from those that might occur in the future,” he said. “That’s just the price you can put on not opening the doors in the morning.

“To that, you also add the cost of customers permanently lost, the damage to real estate values--there’s really no way to estimate just how badly everyone is being hurt.”

Mayor Tom Bradley, who toured the evacuated area during the early afternoon, called the situation “shocking” and pledged the full resources of the city to deal with the problem.

He declared a state of local emergency in the evacuated area and a spokeswoman explained that this is the first step in applying for state or federal funds to aid businessmen and property owners.

Jim Radcliffe of the Southern California Gas Co. said his company had shut down all commercial natural gas lines in the area to avoid the possibility of new explosions touched off by overheating of the gas lines.

He pointed out that no one would suffer from the shutdown, however, since the customers cut off were all business establishments that had been ordered evacuated.

Radcliffe said the methane gas evidently was left over from the old Gilmore & Salt Lake oil and natural gas field in the area, which began operation in the early part of the century and was almost entirely phased out by the 1960s.

Verne F. Gaede, a deputy with the state Division of Oil and Gas, displayed an old map that identified one well--No. 99--as having been drilled in the immediate vicinity of Sunday’s explosion.

That well, Gaede said, was drilled in 1906 and abandoned in 1930, and the old Salt Lake field is now covered by such landmarks as Farmers Market, CBS Television City and a complex of department stores and and supermarkets.

Meanwhile, six of the people injured in the initial explosion remained hospitalized.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center received 14 of the victims, but a spokesman said 12 of them were released after treatment for minor cuts, bruises and burns.

The other two were identified as:

Bonita Harris, 22, reported in serious condition Monday in the intensive care unit where she was treated for second-degree burns to 33% of her body, and Benjamin de Leon, 50, reported in fair condition after surgery for deep facial cuts.

Four of the victims were taken to the Michael Jackson Burn Center at Brotman Medical Center where a spokeswoman said their conditions had improved overnight.

Two were identified as employees of the Ross Dress for Less Store: Diana Lopez, 25, reported in serious condition with burns to 50% of her body, and Michael Armstrong, 26, in serious condition with burns to 30% of his body.

Two Customers Injured

Also at Brotman were two customers who were inside the store at the time of the blast: Alan Wexler, 32, reported in satisfactory condition with scrapes and burns, and Michel Mahoney, 29, reported in satisfactory condition with first- and second-degree burns.

Two victims were taken to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, but a spokeswoman said that both were later discharged.

She identified them as Elouise Oliver, 64, released after observation of chest pains, and Mark Gelbart, 79, who was treated for cuts and bruises.

UCLA Medical Center received two victims, identified as David Doug, 40, who was treated for eye irritation, and Rose Sanchez, 63, who was treated for minor cuts, bruises and burns. Both were released.

Oil exploration specialists at Monday’s firehouse meeting speculated that the blast might have been heralded by increased bubbling of gas observed in recent weeks at the nearby La Brea Tar Pits.

Drummond said reports of seeping gas in basements are common in the vicinity, and numerous “noxious odor” complaints had been noted earlier this month.

Dorothy Frisch, who lives five blocks east of the blast area, said she smelled “rotten eggs or garbage” a week before the explosion.

“At first,” she said, “I thought it was me . . . that I stunk. My gas vent smelled of it, too.”

The odor disappeared after a few days, she recalled, but reappeared--stronger than ever--on Sunday.

“I had been out all day, and when I came home it smelled like somebody’s garbage,” she said. “Next thing I knew, I heard the explosion.”

Dr. Ronald J. Lofy of Lockman & Associates, a Monterey Park engineering and planning firm, said the explosion in the Fairfax District was similar to one that occurred in 1981 when workers were excavating an elevator shaft in the basement of the Farmers Insurance Building in the 4700 block of Wilshire Boulevard.

He said the excavation broke into a 5-million-cubic-foot methane gas cavity and the resulting blast “blew the rigging right off.”

Eventually, Lofy said, a storage tank and machinery to run it were constructed there, and the gas--instead of being flared-- was actually recaptured and recycled to heat and cool the Farmers Insurance Building.

Times staff writers Jerry Belcher, Janet Clayton, Leonard Greenwood and Michael Seiler also contributed to this story.