Tire Fire Casts Worrisome Pall in Central Valley Town

The experts tell her there’s nothing to fear from the clouds of black smoke billowing out of the hills near her home, but Karen Grischott is not so sure.

Every morning, she finds a film of soot covering her car. Relatives are hacking and wheezing like never before. And wherever she turns, she hears about another kid with another bloody nose.

“I see what’s landing on my car--a lot of ash--and I figure that’s going in my lungs, too,” says Grischott, a waitress and mother of three. “It doesn’t make you too comfortable.”

Anxiety is familiar here in the San Joaquin Valley, where farmers live in fear of drought, pests and other phenomena that can obliterate a year’s crop--and profits--in an instant. But now the locals are confronting an entirely foreign foe--a massive tire fire burning at their doorstep.

Last week, lightning ignited a mountain of scrap tires six stories high in a ravine on the edge of Westley, a town of 500 people about 100 miles south of Sacramento. The inferno--engulfing the largest tire pile in California--is spewing vast, smoky plumes that stretch like black tentacles over surrounding crops, playgrounds and homes.

Fearful of creating oily runoff that could contaminate underground water supplies, firefighters have so far not attempted to put out the blaze. But that will change today.

On Thursday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hired a Texas company to douse the flaming mound with water and chemical foam. The smoke could subside within two weeks, though the fire may not be out for two months.

“They tell us they can put this fire out safely,” said Steve Mayotte, a fire battalion chief in Stanislaus County. “It’s a long, slow process, but we think it will work.”

The fire has split residents in its smoky path into two distinct camps. Some have greeted the blaze resolutely, refusing to get alarmed. Doc Westbrook, an alfalfa grower in Westley for 46 years, is one of them.

“It’s too bad it had to happen, but I’m sure not going to panic,” Westbrook declared as he played a lunch-hour game of liar’s dice with some buddies at a cafe in town. “I feel just fine.”

Others are far less sanguine, fearful of the fire’s health effects and angry that 7 million tires were allowed to pile up and create a time bomb so near their homes.

“This is a disaster,” said Karen Cox, a tomato and lima bean farmer who lives close to the fire. “Somebody dropped the ball and we’re all paying the price.”

In Westley, Patterson and a few other towns this week, residents were streaming into doctors’ offices, complaining of breathing problems, bloody noses, burning eyes and sore throats. Dr. Piero Garza, an internist in nearby Patterson, said he’s advising patients with such symptoms to stay inside or place a wet handkerchief over their nose and mouth if they must go out.

Tests show that air contaminants remain at levels below what is considered hazardous, though there is a modest increase in particulates--microscopic particles that can slip past the body’s filtering system and into the lungs.

Favorable winds have helped by blowing smoke upward, where it is most easily dispersed, said Allan Hirsch of the state Air Resources Board. Although the skies look ominous, at ground level “the air quality is really quite good,” Hirsch said.

Despite such a rosy assessment, many residents don’t quite believe it, given their symptoms and the thick haze overhead.

“You can smell it, you can see it, you can feel it,” said Pat Maisetti, the former mayor of Patterson who is suffering nosebleeds, labored breathing and burning eyes. “How can they say everything’s fine?”

Melanie Marty, a state toxicologist, said symptoms like coughing, burning eyes and irritated throats are consistent with the gases and particulates in smoke. But whether the tire fire poses a long-term, chronic health threat is “a gray area,” she said.

As a precautionary measure, Stanislaus County officials advised asthmatics and the elderly living near the fire to remain inside, and recommended that all residents refrain from strenuous activity on days when the smoke is blowing their way.

Local schools have canceled physical education classes and practices for sports teams and the marching band. At Patterson High, the football and soccer teams were scheduled to play home games today but instead will travel to their rivals’ schools on the other side of the county.

At Grayson Elementary, Principal Mary Parker is keeping children indoors during recess and lunch hour and watching the sky as she fields calls from worried parents. Patrick Sweeney, district superintendent, said a dip in attendance since the fire reflects the community’s fear.

The fire erupted on Sept. 22 just west of Interstate 5. For a few days after the blaze erupted, the wind blew smoke westward into the Bay Area. Workers in San Francisco’s financial district reported smelling acrid fumes, and a light rain in the East Bay city of Fremont caused gooey black soot to coat cars and soil swimming pools.

Today, smoke remains visible for dozens of miles in all directions, and flashing signs on the state’s major north-south freeway warn motorists to roll up their windows.

State regulators say the pile of discarded tires belongs to Edward Filbin, who opened the disposal site in the 1950s. The tires were supposed to be recycled, either in an adjacent incinerator that produces energy or through other markets.

Instead, officials say, the pile continued to mushroom, prompting the state to revoke the operation’s permit and issue a cleanup and abatement order against Filbin in July.

Regulators blame the fire on Filbin’s failure to create firebreaks within the pile and keep fire suppression equipment on hand.

In addition to the acrid smoke, the smoldering tires are producing a steady stream of toxic black oil as they melt. A separate fire--spewing a particularly dark smoke heavy with hydrocarbons--was ignited in a holding pond of oil next to the pile.

The Westley fire is about 16 miles southwest of a smaller tire fire in Tracy. That blaze has been allowed to smolder for more than a year because officials believed the threat of contaminated runoff exceeded air pollution dangers.

Angry residents near the Westley fire said such a course of action was unacceptable. Meanwhile, a close evaluation of the fire site revealed that the nearest well is a few miles away and 600 feet deep.

“We decided that in terms of ground water, we would not be creating a big problem” by pouring foam and water on the fire, said Reagan Wilson, chief executive officer for Stanislaus County.