Gasoline Pipe Bursts at Marine Base; 1,500 Evacuated

A 10-inch gasoline pipeline burst Saturday near the Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station in Tustin, forcing the evacuation of 1,500 people from military housing, the rerouting of Amtrak trains and the closure of surrounding streets.

At the rupture’s peak, the underground pipeline was spewing 1,000 gallons per minute into an adjacent flood-control channel. But a spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Department said the channel was dammed quickly, preventing the gasoline from fouling San Diego Creek and Upper Newport Bay, an ecological reserve.

There was no fire, and no one was reported injured, although six firefighters were treated for “respiratory irritation” due to inhaling fumes, the spokeswoman said.

Flood Channel Fouled

The pipeline company estimated that 20,000 gallons of premium unleaded fuel were spilled into the flood-control channel, which traverses the Marine Corps base.

“We were real lucky it was in the channel,” said Orange County Fire Department spokeswoman Patti Range.

Even so, she said, the rupture “was flowing pretty good” and “any spark could have set it off.”

The break was in a pipeline beside Moulton Parkway east of Red Hill Avenue. The pipeline, owned by San Diego Pipe Line Co., carries more than 90% of the gasoline transported to San Diego County, Tom Buckley, a company spokesman, said.

He said the pipeline would be patched and functioning by this morning. “It will have no impact on gasoline available in San Diego,” he said.

Train Service Affected

But the pipeline break had a great impact on the Santa Fe Railway mainline, which runs beside the pipeline and is owned by the same parent company, Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corp.

The concentration of gasoline fumes prompted fire officials to halt train traffic for fear that a spark from train wheels would set off an explosion.

Amtrak passenger trains en route when the break was reported at 12:37 p.m. were stopped at Santa Ana and San Juan Capistrano and their passengers bused to their destinations. Five trains due to depart from Los Angeles and San Diego were canceled and passengers offered bus transportation instead.

The track was reopened at 6:38 p.m., and the two night trains from Los Angeles and San Diego were expected to depart on schedule, an Amtrak spokeswoman said.

Residents Flee Homes

Fumes from the channel drifted toward noncommissioned officer housing at the north and east edges of the Marine base, and an estimated 1,500 Marines and their families were ordered from there to the base officers’ clubs and recreation hall.

A Fire Department spokesman said the evacuees would spend the night away from their homes. He said fog in the area was interfering with dissipation of the gasoline fumes and that foam was being spread over gasoline in the channel to hold down fumes.

What fire officials described as a “very, very few” civilians were asked to close down and leave a small commercial area adjacent to the flood-control channel.

No one reported serious ill effects from the fumes, Range said. “About the worst we’ve had was eye irritation.”

Officers from the Tustin and Irvine police departments and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department closed streets in a six-square-mile area bounded by Moulton Parkway and Harvard, Alton and Red Hill avenues.

Buckley said the cause of the pipeline rupture was not yet known. He said such a break “is somewhat unusual, but it does happen.”