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Fire shuts down I10 in LA 7

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spsalso

spsalso

Electrical
Jun 27, 2021
943
A fire under the freeway:


A visual visit to that area using Google Maps shows an enormous amount of flammables placed under the freeway, including wood, tires, and vehicles. It's been my impression that California DOT did not allow that sort of thing, for reasons that might currently appear obvious.

I wonder why this usage was allowed.

I am reminded of that other recent fire, where a freeway on the east coast was taken out:


CADOT was kinda put on notice that fires underneath a freeway were, uh, a problem.



spsalso
 
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Nope, not as far as I could see from my Google tour. There appear to have been businesses using the space. Not BIG business, mind you.

One was/is Serafin's Distribution. Or so the sign says. Across the street I saw huge stacks of pallets. Both areas were fenced, with gates. I saw no sign of a homeless encampment.

The date of the Google photos is unknown. Perhaps those businesses cleared out. I suspect not. Even if that's the case, it's still of interst to me how those two business were allowed to place those items under the freeway. WHO allowed that? Did/does Caltrans ever inspect its property? Were these spaces rented, or pirated? If the latter, why was that allowed? If the former, who received the rent checks?


spsalso
 
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I see quite the extensive encampment a few feet from the overpass.

Screenshot_20231111-123741_if9lkn.png
 
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The homeless are surely to blame for stacking a few hundred tons of dry pallets under the bridge in a fenced off recycle yard.
 
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It's certainly possible that a homeless person did start the fire. It's been known to happen.

But if those items were not under the freeway, the problem would have been FAR smaller.

BALLPARK WAG's:

A tanker truck full of gasoline (9000 gal) contains 1035 M BTU. (You know, like the one that destroyed the freeway in Philly back in June.)

A stack of pallets that I saw in the map view that was NOT under the freeway contained about 183 M BTU.
There was a stock of pallets UNDER the freeway that was pretty close to the same size.

So the stack under the freeway was worth about 18% of a full gas tanker, or about 1600 gallons. And then there's the other crap lying around.

Note that a stack of pallets gives REALLY GOOD ACCESS to air for the burn. If that much wood had been there as 12" diameter logs, the fire folks likely would have had it out in plenty of time.


On rexamination of the street view, I'm going to say that my estimate of the size of the piles was low, and will bump that 183 up to 200-300. That's for each stack. Now you've got 2/3 of a tank truck burning, equivalent.


spsalso
 
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"The homeless are surely to blame for stacking a few hundred tons of dry pallets under the bridge in a fenced off recycle yard."

From the photo, it looks like they lessened the problem by removing a bit of the fuel. Probably should have kept at it.


spsalso
 
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Listening to the fire radio, there were active commercial pallet yards involved in this fire. They were also having to tag hydrants outside the immediate area to supply enough water....multiple hose lines at 250 GPM, and master streams at 750 to 1500 GPM. Fire extended to buildings in the ares.
 
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There is also an encampment directly under the overpass.

Screenshot_20231111-131200_wxjoih.png
 
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There were 25 engine companies, 12 truck companies and multiple chiefs and other LA fire department units assigned to this fire.
 
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This is some fantastic video of the event:




I noted a fair amount of explosions, including a strange "air-burst" around 18:49.

Seems like there might have been other interesting stuff stored, beyond the pallets.




spsalso
 
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By the title of the thread, I was worried that I10 was closed in LA. But it is only in CA.
 
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The small pops are common with hot burning wood fires, and it could also be spalling concrete. Some of the louder ones were probably truck tires, and the big ones, likely propane tanks from the fork lifts.
 
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Screenshot_from_2023-11-11_18-57-16_mw1ehn.png

Crazy
As of 6:44 PM Eastern Time
Screenshot_from_2023-11-11_18-42-01_ifhaqa.png

Monday commute will be a bear.
 
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Sick day :)

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
 
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That sounds to me like exploding concrete. Trees also explode when they are wet, but this is all very dry pallets.
 
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There will be speculation about how and who started the fire, but the primary problem here seems to be permitting the stacking of large amounts of flammable material underneath critical infrastructure. If it was a building it would be against fire regulations to not have any fire suppression for such a use, right? So given that space under a bridge is effectively a building, usages like this should either be disallowed entirely or should have to maintain suppression systems suitable for the amount of flammable material they want to store there.

The east coast incident was not caused by material stored under a bridge, but it should have reminded everyone of why fires under bridges are bad and triggered them to check what was being done under their own bridges.

Looking at the intensity of that fire I would be surprised if the concrete was usable so that's going to be a big and expensive rebuilding job.
 
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Since the structure has been used for the passage of heavy trucks, I expect that if only cars were allowed, it could continue to be used while additional support was placed underneath. Then trucks could again be allowed.

That said, I expect the phrase "an abundance of caution" will be operational.



spsalso



 
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...need some hotdogs and marshmallows...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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