Tank Meltdown Sparks Fire at Electronics Plant

Firefighters quickly extinguished a smoldering blaze in a Mar Vista electronics plant early Monday and worked to ensure that hazardous runoff did not contaminate the area, city fire officials said.

The meltdown of a tank of chemicals at Teledyne Microelectronics in the 12000 block of Panama Street probably started because a heating element failed to shut off automatically, said Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis.

The failure allowed a 30-gallon tank of nickel cyanide and one container of gold cyanide to overheat, he said. The tank of nickel cyanide--used in plating--melted and caused about $5,000 in damage.

Collis said the manufacturing plant’s automatic sprinkler system helped contain the 5:22 a.m. fire, which was extinguished in about 20 minutes. There were no injuries.

Firefighters constructed barriers to keep tainted water and potentially hazardous chemicals from escaping into storm drains, he said.

The runoff was removed from the area Monday afternoon and will be treated as hazardous waste, said Jim Nishida of the county Fire Department’s hazardous materials team.

Nishida said field tests indicated that no hazardous materials remained in the area.