Cleanup to Start at Site of Chemical Firm Blaze

County officials began making plans Sunday to clear a Sun Valley chemical distributing company of dangerous chemicals left after a Saturday afternoon blaze destroyed the firm and injured 56 people, including 52 firefighters.

The firefighters complained of nausea, respiratory difficulties and dizziness after inhaling fumes from the blaze, according to fire officials.

All the firefighters had been released from San Fernando Valley hospitals by Sunday. Only an unidentified police officer and Los Angeles Herald Examiner photographer Mike Mullen remained hospitalized, both of them in stable condition.

Cleanup Cost of $50,000

Officials estimated the cleanup of Research Organic and Inorganic Chemicals Co. on De Garmo Avenue would cost as much as $50,000. No estimate of the company’s loss had been made by Sunday, Fire Department spokesman Larry Ford said. Only the exterior walls of the company were left standing.

John Boyd, an city arson investigator, said Sunday that the fire may have started in the building’s northeast corner and that an investigation was continuing.

The fire was fed by a number of flammable acids and corrosive chemicals. Fire Department spokesman Greg Acevedo said the company’s chemical stores included muriatic, sulfuric and nitric acids, acetone, methanol and benzene.

Uranium Found

About 15 pounds of radioactive powdered uranium was found Sunday in a 55-gallon drum that was damaged by the fire. The material is hazardous only when it becomes airborne, and testing indicated that it had remained inside the drum, said Joseph Karbus, director of the Los Angeles County Health Department’s occupational and radiation management office.

The firm, owned by Mary Ann Pratter, houses chemicals and distributes them to laboratories involved in the metal-finishing industry and in medical research, said Richard Gillaspy, an official with the county health department’s hazardous-materials squad. The warehouse and two rooms used as laboratories were destroyed by the fire.

Gillaspy said the cleanup will include repackaging damaged containers, many of which were made of cardboard. The material will then be shipped to hazardous-waste dumps.

Quick Removal Sought

Karbus said that if Pratter cannot afford to pay for the cleanup the state Department of Health will pay in order to quickly remove the hazardous materials, but that Pratter would be billed for the costs.

Officials of Industrial Technologies Inc., a hazardous-materials removal firm, were at the site Sunday assessing the scope and cost of the cleanup.

Several firefighters and police officers at the scene of the fire Saturday were sprayed with water to cleanse them of the chemicals and chemical-laden smoke, a Fire Department spokesman said.

Pratter, who was at the scene Sunday, refused to comment on the fire.

Boyd said that Pratter did not own the building, and that she was planning to move the company to Orange County today.