Pole Fire’s Toxic Runoff Threatens Wetlands

Fire and environmental officials worked Tuesday to mop up the Bolsa Chica wetlands after an early morning fire burned a lot full of scrap telephone poles and threatened to send contaminated runoff into the delicate ecosystem.

County fire crews and bulldozers dammed up the contaminated water and skimmed off a layer of creosote--a petroleum-based substance used as a wood preservative.

The large stack of creosote-soaked telephone poles ignited at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday in the commercial lot of Wood-Man Pole Co., located in the 17200 block of Pacific Coast Highway on the edge of the wetlands, said Orange County Fire Captain Dan Young.

“Once it starts to burn, it burns like a flammable liquid and it’s pretty intense,” Young said of the creosote.

The cause of the blaze is under investigation, county fire spokeswoman Maria Sabol said.

It took 26 firefighters an hour and 13 minutes to control the fire, and another two hours to douse the flames. Later Tuesday morning, crews continued to hose down the lumber pile and break apart the soggy mess of lumber.

Environmental officials from the state Department of Fish and Game were called to the scene in darkness to assess any potential threat to the wetlands.

The Fish and Game biologist left by 8 a.m. and could not be reached for comment Tuesday. It is unclear whether any of the creosote runoff made it into the wetlands, a few thousand feet from the pole lot, Sabol said.

“My understanding is there was not a problem,” she said.

The fire was not the first in the lot, southeast of Bolsa Chica Road and Los Patos Avenue in an unincorporated area between Huntington Beach and Seal Beach.

In April 1993, a 15-year-old boy was arrested on felony arson charges after he admitted to setting a blaze in the pole lot that burned for two hours and created billowing black smoke visible for 20 miles.

A Huntington Beach fire engine assisted county firefighters in fighting the blaze Tuesday, Sabol said.

The business converts old telephone poles, about 30 to 40 feet long, for other uses, including backstops for Little League baseball fields.

Louann Murray, research director for the Bolsa Chica Conservancy, said fires in the pole lot create a much sharper concern for wildlife than a brush fire because of the creosote.

“The poles are treated with creosote and that creates toxic runoff,” she said. “A fire in the pole yard can be a problem.”