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Alt Thursday,September 23, 1999 The Record TIRE FIRE Continued from Al is stay indoors;' advised Michael Escotto, supervising air-quality Ih1 inspector with the San Joaquin. Valley Air Pollution Control District office in Modesto. Employees working the night shift at the tire incineration plant on the property saw the lightning strike and immediately sum- moned authorities, said to Ed Tomeo, vice president of New Jersey-based United American Energy Corp., which bought the r, plant six years ago. Tomeo said workers tried to extinguish the blaze with the plant's fire-suppression system. ¢` r' A More than 2,000 tires were ablaze in the gulch below the plant when the first fire crews arrived, Hall said. More than a dozen empty freight trailers in the ravine also caught fire, their tires exploding in the heat. "In a nutshell, we'll just let it burn itself out.At this point, there ;ti is not a lot more we can do," said. 70 firefighters on scene Fifty Stanislaus County firefight- ers and 20 from the CDF .y responded to the blaze. Crews carved out fire breaks with bulldozers and set controlled burns to keep the fire from reach- ing surrounding grasslands. a HOT FIRE:Tires area petroleum product and burn hot, as seen in this helicopter dropped water on the P fire. Initially, hot fires burn up most records show. On Sept. 7, the The heat was so intense it blew of the pollutants and propel the board issued a final order requir- out the windshield and blistered smoke high into the atmosphere, ing Filbin to post a security guard the paint on one firetruck, Hall where it is readily dissipated. on the property, install a fire-sup- said. Experts worry that runoff from pression system and remove all of Grayson resident Martha chemicals and water used to fight the tires within one year. Dominguez said she noticed the the fire may cause more harm Waste board Executive Director black smoke curling up in the dis- that the heavy black smoke bil- Ralph Chandler said Filbin has tance about 7:30 a.m. lowing from the site. taken no action to comply. "I looked out the window and "Mr. Filbin doesn't believe the thought, 'Oh, my God, it looks like tires are his responsibility," he there's going to be a tornado.' It's Problems with Filbin said really scary." Last summer, a pile of 7 mil- Neither Filbin nor his attorney Experts estimated Wednesday lion tires caught fire at a 30-acre could be reached Wednesday for that at least 80 percent of the tire dump near Tracy. That fire is still comment. pile will be consumed by the smoldering. According to a waste-board blaze. According to the state report, Filbin has been stockpiling "We are looking at a total loss," Integrated Waste Management tires on the property since the said sheriff's Deputy Tammy Drew, Board, the 7 million tires in the 1950s and once had an estimated a public-information officer with pile make up the largest illegal 30 million tires. the county. No dollar figure was tire dump in the state. Tires are Modesto Energy L.P. built an given, stacked up to 60 feet deep in incinerator in 1987 to start burn- Because tires are a petroleum swales and ravines on the proper- ing the stockpile at about the product and pose a potential envi- ty. same time the state attorney gen- ronmental threat, state and feder- State regulators have filed a eral filed suit against Filbin to al environmental officials, and variety of legal and administrative force him to make fire-safety representatives from the California actions against property owner improvements. Air Resources Control Board were Edward Filbin in an attempt to That year, Filbin sold the tire called to the scene. clean up the tire pile since 1987, pile to Oxford Tire Recycling, a