Chemical Fire Forces Firms to Evacuate

Workers along East Occidental Street were forced to evacuate Thursday when chemicals being mixed at a small factory reacted, creating billowing, noxious smoke.

Firefighters ordered nearly 100 people to leave offices and factories along the street for about two hours until fumes dissipated from the chemical fire at California Composite Design.

No injuries were confirmed, although a handful of people complained of stinging eyes and an unpleasant smell. Some strapped masks over their noses and mouths as they lined the street, watching firefighters mill around the industrial building permeated with fumes.

The chemical fire apparently started when workers were mixing epoxy with a hardening agent in five-gallon containers at California Composite Design, at 1935 E. Occidental St., Santa Ana, fire officials said.

An unexpected chemical reaction sent thick smoke into the offices of neighboring JRV Products Inc., where employees began complaining to their managers of the smell and watery eyes.

“It was like a London fog. You couldn’t see through it,” said JRV owner Jack Beckingham, who set out to investigate. When a man outside told him about “a bad batch of chemicals,” Beckingham said, he called the Fire Department and ordered his employees outside.

About 40 firefighters responded at 12:12 p.m., evacuating everyone within 200 yards east and downwind of California Composite Design. The 25-employee firm uses resin to make composite tubing used in such products as bicycle frame tubes and drive shafts, said owner Fred Good.

One worker, Kim Nelson, 26, of Costa Mesa, said she had been sitting at a table sanding tubes when she began smelling smoke.

“It smelled like someone was burning hot coals,” Nelson said as she waited down the street. “The more I tried to move, the stronger it got.”

Nelson said her boss passed out facemasks and she put one on and left the building.

Afterward, firefighters followed decontamination procedures, standing in portable plastic pools while co-workers hosed them down.

They tested the air before allowing people to return to work. Many of those evacuated seemed nonchalant about the incident.

“We were fine,” said Matthew Arns, co-owner of Pacific Conveyor Systems. “It just stunk.”

Also contributing to this report was correspondent Jeff Kass.