Propane Leak Forces Lengthy Street Closure
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Fire officials closed a stretch of busy 1st Street for nearly seven hours Tuesday as they struggled to contain a propane leak from a 6,000-gallon tank, said Santa Ana Battalion Chief Jim Dalton.
Employees at Superior Propane and Petroleum, on the corner of Newhope and West 1st streets, were testing a tank they recently bought to see if it was airtight, Dalton said, when the fuel began leaking, creating a “very audible” hissing sound.
Leaking propane can easily lead to an explosion, he said.
The leak in the tank, which contained about 1,200 gallons of fuel, was reported to fire officials about 8:40 a.m. The intersection was not reopened to traffic until shortly after 3 p.m., Dalton said.
Several businesses in the immediate area were evacuated as firefighters worked to slow the leak. They attempted to pump the fuel from the faulty tank, but problem valves prevented that. Instead, they chose to vent the leaking fuel into the air and burn it, Dalton said.
“That’s really a safe way to handle it,” Dalton said. “You know where it is and it’s already burning.”
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