Toxic Chemical Fire Controlled; Residents Go Home

Fire and health officials Tuesday evening lifted an evacuation order for all the estimated 7,500 Orange County residents who fled their homes four days ago because of a fire in a toxic chemical warehouse in Anaheim.

At 8 p.m., Anaheim Fire Chief Robert Simpson announced that a team of 25 firefighters had brought under control the toxic blaze that erupted Saturday evening at a fertilizer warehouse and spewed dangerous fumes over a 1 1/2-square-mile area.

“We can now say that the fire is under control,” Simpson said at a press conference held at the Anaheim emergency command center. He added that the evacuees from Anaheim, Fullerton and Placentia could begin returning to their neighborhoods at 10 p.m.

However, Simpson cautioned that a two-square-block area around the Larry Fricker Co. warehouse, the site of the fire, would remain cordoned off for about a week because of the lingering possibility of health threats.

The restriction is expected to affect approximately 500 workers employed at businesses in an area bordered by State College Boulevard, the Riverside Freeway, Baxter Street and Daly Street.

Immediately after Simpson’s announcement, police began visiting the three evacuation centers that were set up at area schools by the Red Cross and distributed special permits allowing residents to return home.

Other residents who had not been staying at the evacuation centers would also be issued permits, officers said.

“We feel we can be very confident to let people back into the area. We feel there is no hazard at this time,” Dr. Philip Edelman, medical director of the regional poison center at the University of California, Irvine, Medical Center in Orange, told the press conference.

Edleman explained that extensive testing of the chemical residue and fumes from the warehouse fire “indicates that the area directly adjacent to the facility has no contamination.”

Simpson added that the decision to allow residents to return to their homes was based on air monitoring tests conducted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The tests found no health hazards, although pesticide vapors and nitric fumes still persist in the plant, he said.

Earlier in the day, there had been warnings that it could be another three days before the air was clear enough so that displaced residents could go home and businesses could reopen.

The threat of an explosion had largely passed Tuesday morning with the removal of about four tons of highly volatile ammonium nitrate from the warehouse at 1421 State College Blvd.

But officials then had to ascertain how much danger the populace faced in the event that some of the remaining chemicals became mixed or came into contact with water.

Santa Ana winds had been considered a possibility today and Simpson said earlier Tuesday that if fumes were still at perilous levels, the evacuation area would have to be enlarged a mile to the west and south into additional Anaheim neighborhoods.

Orange County Fire Chief Larry Holms told county supervisors Tuesday morning that there had been “significant improvement,” but it could take up to three more days to get the chemical burn under control.

A three-mile stretch of the Orange Freeway was reopened late Monday evening as fumes diminished, but some exit and entrance ramps within the evacuation area had remained closed.

During the day Tuesday, Capt. Michael Rohde of the Orange County Fire Department hazardous materials team said federal Environmental Protection Agency experts working with a U.S. Coast Guard team at the warehouse were “still having a great deal of difficulty stabilizing the toxic chemicals.”

Residents who evacuated the area early Sunday and on Monday as the square-mile danger zone doubled were advised during the day Tuesday not to go home to retrieve pets or for any other reason. An Anaheim city spokeswoman said callers were told, “Absolutely not.”

No Serious Injuries

There were no serious injuries related to the blaze, although 18 people were treated and released after exposure to chemical fumes.

Even as air testing continued Tuesday night, Rohde said that firefighters had found “haphazardly stored chemicals” in the warehouse, about 3 1/2 miles north of Anaheim Stadium. He said Anaheim fire officials were looking into the possibility that “some processing had gone on that would be considered illegal.”

In addition, court records showed that the Orange County district attorney’s office filed a $1.6-million lawsuit against Fricker in February for alleged illegal handling and disposal of toxic materials at the firm’s former Tustin plant.

Acid Spill in 1981

The Tustin facility was the site of an August, 1981, spill of 3,800 gallons of phosphoric acid from a storage tank. That incident prompted the one-day evacuation of 1,800 residents.

Rohde said chemicals were found in disorderly arrangement throughout the warehouse. “Whether it was like that before the fire, we don’t know,” he said.

He said the owner told firefighters there was nothing in the warehouse to cause the toxic fume problem, but he submitted a list containing some items that were not formal chemical names, so it was difficult to know what was there.

Two of the three smoldering fires inside the warehouse were extinguished Monday afternoon, but the fumes were so poisonous that only two firefighters wearing self-contained breathing apparatus could enter at that time, Rohde said.

Although firefighters initially sprayed water on the flames, they saw the fumes spewing from the chemicals and immediately backed off.

A spokeswoman for the American Red Cross said 445 people had stayed at emergency shelters set up in three Anaheim schools.

Contributing to this story was Times staff writer Jack Jones.