Metro Rail Tunnel Burns Downtown, Severing Freeway : Accident: A 150-foot section of the structure collapses. A three-mile stretch of U.S. 101 could remain closed for weeks.

A stubborn fire raged underground in an uncompleted section of a Metro Rail subway in downtown Los Angeles Friday, collapsing a 150-foot stretch of tunnel near the Hollywood Freeway and snarling commuter traffic for hours.

The fire, which erupted before dawn and burned out of control throughout the day, produced an eerie scene of flames and smoke shooting from holes in the ground.

The cause of the fire was not immediately determined. California Highway Patrol officials said that a three-mile stretch of the freeway, one of the busiest arteries through the heart of downtown Los Angeles, would be closed at least through the weekend, and possibly next week.

The fire is by far the worst setback to mar construction of the first 4.4-mile phase of the Metro Rail subway system, a $1.4-billion project that is running millions of dollars over budget and months behind schedule.

Six workers facing a wall of flame when the fire erupted at 1:50 a.m. escaped by dashing under the freeway to safety, but at least four of about 150 firefighters battling the blaze sustained minor injuries.

Fire officials said wooden shoring timbers and highly flammable plastic lining burned along the length of the 750-foot subway tunnel for most of the day.

At 2:30 a.m., heavy smoke forced the California Highway Patrol to close a downtown portion of the freeway, officially known as U.S. 101. Then, a stretch of the tunnel collapsed within 10 feet of the freeway, raising fears about the structural safety of the roadway.

The freeway will not be reopened until it can be adequately inspected for damage, officials said.

Clouds of moderately toxic smoke from the burning plastic liner forced firefighters to wear protective masks, further complicating a task already made arduous by high humidity and temperatures that approached the 100-degree mark.

“If hell was like this, I think I would go to church more often,” John Gonzalez, a firefighter-paramedic from the Studio City station, said as he emerged from a 30-minute foray into the burning tunnel.

Firefighters battled the blaze from both ends of the tunnel, which runs from Union Station, under the Hollywood Freeway to a maintenance yard at the intersection of Center and Commercial streets. But fears of another collapse and the thick smoke, intense heat and toxic fumes prevented firefighters from entering the shaft until about 1 p.m.

“You can’t put a man in there,” a safety engineer said early Friday. “It would be like walking into a burning chimney.”

In the predawn hours, flames spurted from both ends of the tunnel and at times shot 100 feet into the air.

Then at dawn, smaller jets of flame erupted through the ground above the tunnel and marched toward the freeway, marking the steady advance of the collapsing tunnel. By noon, about 150 feet of the tunnel had caved in.

Firefighters at first adopted a “defensive position,” aiming fans and fire hoses into each end of the tunnel to contain the fire and wait for it to burn itself out. Later, firefighters pumped fire retardant foam through a corrugated steel pipe into the tunnel, and that suffocated the flames on the wooden supports, according to Jim Drago, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation.

But the plastic lining continued to smolder.

“The longer it burns, it’s like hot coals on the bottom (of the tunnel),” said Fire Capt. John Maleta. “And all that steel will keep the heat. We just have to go in there and soak it (the heat) out.”

Finally, at 1 p.m., the first eight-member team of firefighters, wearing oxygen masks and protective clothing, ventured into the northern end of the tunnel, where much of the fire had been extinguished. Spraying water on the floor to cool their path, they doused flames and crept about 250 feet into the tunnel.

One firefighter from the team was scalded by water that got into his boots. Once they emerged, several required intravenous infusions of fluid to replenish themselves.

Firefighters planned to install 12-inch timbers across the top of the shaft to prevent further collapse. Once new shoring is in place, firefighters will go in and begin extinguishing the fire at the south end.

“These are horrible fires to fight,” said firefighter Ken Evanoff. “It’s just a waiting game. You just peck away and peck away hard to get to the seat of the thing. You . . . can’t just run a bunch of people in there.”

Officials say the fire may further delay completion of the subway--already 18 months behind schedule.

Each day of delay costs an estimated $100,000 in interest and escalating costs, but Southern California Rapid Transit District officials said the loss to the tunnel itself is covered by insurance.

“It is a tremendous disaster,” said Ronald Tutor, president of Tutor-Saliba Corp., the contractor building the tunnel. “Part of the tunnel is collapsed. The other (tunnel) is subject to review. It is almost mind-boggling.”

Tutor said he anticipated that the fire will delay completion of the the tunnel by a matter of months. It had been three weeks behind schedule and would have been finished by Sept. 15, he said. Now, he added, it is “entirely probable” that it will not be done until next year.

Gas lines in the area, including one to a federal prison, were turned off as a precaution. Even the U.S. Postal Service was affected, with some mail not being delivered to areas near the fire.

Commuters fumed in widespread morning traffic jams, and some gave up and went back home when they could not reach their downtown destinations.

Traffic officials said smoke from the fire and fears that the roadway over the tunnel could collapse prompted closure of a three-mile section of the Hollywood Freeway between Mission Road and the interchange with the Pasadena and Harbor freeways.

The result was a massive tie-up jam that backed up traffic all the way to the Foothill Freeway in the Pasadena area and the San Diego Freeway in West Los Angeles.

“Generally, it affected everything in the system at one point or another,” said Officer Lydia Martinez of the California Highway Patrol.

Officials said the freeway could remain closed for days, or even weeks, depending on how much the underpinnings of the roadway may have been weakened. CHP Deputy Chief Edward Gomez said late Friday that the freeway would be closed at least through the weekend and possibly into next week. A bus lane may be opened during weekdays, he said.

Drago of Caltrans said the highway will remain closed until it can be inspected for damage and the stability of the soil under the freeway can be assessed.

“If the damage is bad, this could be closed for awhile because the bottom line is we’re not going to put any traffic on the roadway until we’re absolutely convinced there is no risk,” he said.

Officials said the cause of the fire cannot be fully investigated until the tunnel has cooled down sufficiently for inspectors to enter. They initially ruled out an explosion involving methane gas and spontaneous combustion. Several officials said the fire was suspicious because no work had taken place in the tunnel for 10 to 12 hours before the blaze erupted.

Work in the tunnel involved installation of the plastic lining and “shouldn’t involve any kind of flammable material or anything that would smoulder” or equipment that would spark a fire, said Harold Stories, director of construction safety for RTD.

Neil Peterson, executive director of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, said an independent investigation of the fire’s cause will be conducted by Minneapolis-based Kellogg Engineering. A preliminary report is expected within two weeks.

But early speculation centered on arson.

Byron Ishkanian, Cal/OSHA’s senior mining and tunneling engineer, said he suspected the fire was started by transients, who have crept onto the project’s property through openings along the Los Angeles River and started a fire elsewhere on Metro Rail property last week.

“I just can’t help but think it was something like that. It was the only way you could get ignition,” said Ishkanian, who was in charge of safety for the overall Metro Rail project until May, when he quit to join Cal/OSHA.

The tunnel that burned was one of two parallel shafts--A-130 Left and A-130 Right--which are not to be used for passenger traffic between MacArthur Park and Union Station.

Instead, they will carry empty trains between Union Station and a maintenance yard now under construction beside the Los Angeles River.

As they were dug, each tunnel was shored with wooden beams--each about six inches thick, 12 inches wide and four feet long--held in place against the tunnel wall by a series of 17-foot steel rings that extend down the length of the tunnel like the ribs of a whale. Fiber packing was crammed between the beams to ensure a tight fit.

The shoring was then covered by a polyethelene membrane about an eighth of an inch thick to seal out flammable gases like methane that abound underground in the Los Angeles area.

Tunnel A-130 Right is largely completed, its shoring and liner covered with a thick concrete lining. But in Tunnel A-130 Left, the one that was burning, the concrete had yet to be poured and the flammable packing and liners were still exposed. No underground passageways connect the tunnels, which are about 12 feet apart and top out about 15 feet below the pavement of the Hollywood Freeway.

Fire officials said the blaze apparently started at about 1:50 a.m.in A-130 Left. No one was in that tunnel at the time, but a half-dozen men were working in A-130 Right.

Andrea Greene, a spokeswoman for the RTD, which has overall authority over the project, said that the workers heard the roar of the flames in the adjacent tunnel and ran to the west end of their tunnel to escape.

As they neared the west portal, she said, they saw a “bright light” from the flames billowing from that end. She said the men turned and ran back through their tunnel to safety at the east portal.

Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson, Ronald B. Taylor and Dean Murphy contributed to this story.

Also contributing to the tunnel fire coverage were Times staff writers Paul Feldman, Paul Lieberman, Victor Merina, Dean Murphy, Ron Smith, Ronald B. Taylor, Tracy Wilkinson and Tracy Wood.

SUBWAY FIRE 1. At approximately 1:50 Friday morning fire starts in the 50% completed, 750-foot service section of the Metro Rail Red Line tunnel below the Hollywood Freeway (101). 2. Wooden shoring, and highly flammable plastic burn throughout the tunnel, emitting mildly toxic fumes. 3. At 5:00 a.m. a portion of the tunnel roof collapses, expanding to 150 feet by noon and coming within 10 feet of the freeway. Bulldozers are brought in an effort to fill the holes. Research by Michael Meyers.

Source: Southern California Rapid Transit District