Biggest Fire in Brea History Still Far From Cleaned Up

Firefighters and work crews on Wednesday stamped out smoldering remains and cleared away rubble at a rubber-parts factory, the site of the largest blaze in the city’s history.

Bulldozers and fire trucks were still busy Wednesday at the Esco Rubber Products building at 130 N. Brea Blvd. and will take days to completely extinguish stubborn hot spots and cope with potential toxic risks, fire officials said.

The fire that began late Tuesday afternoon--apparently triggered by machinery sparks--was under control by early Wednesday morning, but not before flames had jumped to an adjacent day-care center operated by the Foursquare Church of Brea.

“The day-care center was burned to the ground,” city spokeswoman Cindie Ryan said. Fire officials “had hoped it could be saved,” she said, “but it’s gone.”

No injuries directly linked to the fire were reported, and the exact cause of the blaze is under investigation. Officials were estimating Wednesday that damage to the plumbing-parts business and others could well exceed $1 million.

“It was a hell of an incident,” said Battalion Chief Dave Huffman of the Brea Fire Department. “As far as structure fires go, this is among the worst I’ve ever seen.”

More than 120 firefighters from three cities worked in shifts of about 40 on Tuesday and early Wednesday, at times pumping more than 3,000 gallons of water a minute on the blaze.

A shroud of black, acrid smoke was visible from miles away, and fire officials cautioned residents and onlookers to avoid breathing the toxic smoke. More than 100 people in the area were evacuated.

The pungent smell of charred rubber was still strong Wednesday morning as Brea police cordoned off about half a mile of North Brea Boulevard to make way for cleanup crews. Police told commuters to expect the stretch, bordered by Cypress Street and Lambert Road, to remain closed today.

Nearby residents were seeing other effects Wednesday, with several temporary failures in electricity, phone and cable television service, Ryan said. Some displaced residents were being lodged at local motels, using vouchers handed out by disaster services workers, and others were flooding city phone lines seeking more information about the evacuation area.

Investigators on Wednesday also combed through ashes and twisted metal, searching for clues to the cause of the devastating fire. Though an investigation has yet to confirm it, they suspect sparks from a machine grinder that hit a plywood wall ignited the fire.

By Wednesday morning, the half-century-old building was burnt nearly to the ground. All that was left were three badly scorched structural walls, piles of charred debris and the foot-high letter “S” from a sign that used to hang from the Esco Rubber Products building.

With the help of firefighters, Esco co-owner Bob Gorham retrieved the letter and said he will frame it in the company’s new building, about 100 yards away from the fire site. The family-owned business, which makes rubber plumbing parts such as washers and plungers, was scheduled to move into the new building less than a month before the blaze.

“It’s ironic that the ‘S’ was the only thing to survive,” said Gorham, 44. “I don’t think this whole thing has really sunk in yet.”

The fire also gutted the adjacent day-care center, from which five children were evacuated when the blaze erupted Tuesday. On Wednesday, the 15 or so children who are regularly left at the day-care center were sent to another church nearby.

The 50 senior citizen residents of the adjacent Orange Villas Apartments were told they would probably not be permitted back in their dwellings until Thursday. Although the 37-unit complex suffered minor damage, such as broken windows, the smell of smoke in the apartments was too strong, said officials.

That meant George Anderson, 73, who has lived in the senior apartments for the last seven years, was going to spend another night at a nearby hotel. Anderson said the fire scared him, but didn’t take away his sense of humor.

“I used to live in Orange Villas,” joked Anderson, sitting on a bench a block away from his apartment. “Now I live on a park bench.”