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ROYSTER TIRE SITE FIRE SUPPRESSION Tracy, California Introduction the site for fire suppression activities. The The tire fire at the Silas Royster property has existing accumulation of burn ash will have to be moved to access the burning areas of the tire pile. burned for more than two years. Only a small The burn ash will be wetted to keep it from portion of the site where the tire pile was the becoming airborne during this process. Fire deepest still continues to smolder. Early next suppression efforts are expected to begin in week,the California Integrated Waste earnest on Tuesday,December 5. An excavator Management Board(Waste Board), one of six will pull small amounts of burning debris from the boards and departments in the California tire pile and spread them on the ground where they Environmental Protection Agency,will begin fire will be extinguished with foam and water. suppression work at the site. Environmental samples will be collected for Over athree-week period,remaining hot spots in analysis and soil temperature surveys will be the tire pile will be put out and ash from the fire conducted. Once the fire has been completely will be consolidated then covered with soil. extinguished,the contractor will apply a soil The fire suppression effort is being coordinated sealant to temporarily encapsulate any with the Tracy Fire Department, San Joaquin contaminated material. Finally,all excavations County Public Health Services, San Joaquin will be backfilled using compacted clean soil. Valley Air Quality Management District and Engineers and health officials do not anticipate California Air Resources Board. any offsite exposure to smoke during the project. Background However,workers involved in the suppression effort—heavy equipment operators,fire fighters, On August 7, 1998,an estimated seven million and safety personnel—will wear protective tires being illegally stored at the Royster tire site equipment as required by worker safety were ignited. Because of the site's bowl-shaped regulations. Air quality will be continuously geography and limited past success with fire monitored during the fire suppression activities to suppression efforts on similar sized tire fires, ensure worker and public health and safety. environmental and fire officials determined that The Waste Board's contractor, Sukut Construction the best strategy was to let the tires burn. This (www.sukut.com)of Santa Ana, California is decision was made to avoid creating a more experienced in tire site cleanup and tire fire significant groundwater contamination problem remediation. Sukut was the Waste Board's that may have occurred had large volumes of contractor for cleanup of the Panoche burn site in water been applied in a fire suppression effort. Fresno County in 1996-97. A final report of the Such an effort would have produced an enormous Panoche burn site remediation project is available volume of potentially hazardous liquid waste on the Waste Board's web site at resulting from the mixture of water and pyrolytic www.ciwmb.ca.gov/tiredisposal/fires/Panoche/. oil,a by-product of burning tires. Action Plan Project Funding Activity on the site will start on Thursday, The Waste Board approved a spending plan of November 30 when workers will begin preparing $364,925 in October for the fire suppression effort and in the future may consider additional funding