The Forces of Man--and Nature

The startling photograph on Page 1 of Tuesday’s paper captured the story of the methane-fed fires burning through the pavement in four square blocks of the Fairfax shopping district. Since Sunday afternoon, when an explosion destroyed a clothing store on West 3rd Street, Angelenos have been rudely reminded that there once was an oil field where the Farmers Market and other stores now stand and that remnants of those oil-drilling days remain trapped underground. It appears that natural gas collected in the basement of the clothing store and was ignited by a spark. No one knows how much gas remains, so no one now knows when the fires will be put out and the area can return to normal.

Fortunately, though about 20 persons were injured in the explosion, no one was killed. But the economic losses to shuttered businesses could be large. Property values may decline. It will be a long time before people forget the strange occurrence that made flames leap from the ground.

For all its many pleasures, Southern California remains a geologically unstable and unpredictable place. Earthquakes are never far from peoples’ thoughts, but they are not the only dangers that we live with. The La Brea Tar Pits, not far from Sunday’s blast, continue to bubble ominously, and tar often seeps up from the ground on 6th Street.

Every once in a while the forces of nature, which are normally quiet and well-behaved, rear up and make a good deal of trouble. Local officials should get out the maps of old oil fields and determine whether any of them pose a hazard. Prudence dictates such action, but there is no guarantee that it would prevent a recurrence. Slight shifts in subterranean formations can turn safe areas into unsafe ones. Still, steps can and should be taken to reduce the chances of life-threatening surprises. If those steps prevent more gas explosions, the current episode may turn out to be more in the nature of a welcome shock than of a true disaster.