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Oscrept.bac .- Pa e 2 In discussing the removal action the report will review the potential health and environmental impacts of tires fires and compare them to what actually occurred at the Panoche Tire Dump Fire . This report has been prepared to satisfy the requirement of reporting to the Regional Response Team (RRT) and the National Response Team (NRT) as set forth in the National Contingency Plan (NCP) . Ii. Summary of Events A. Site conditions and Background 1 . Situation On May 20 , 1996, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) received a report of several grass fires in the vicinity of a large tire dump site in Fresno County, California. The grass fires had impacted the inactive dump site which reportedly contained an estimated three to five million tires . The fire was apparently caused by arson. The burning tires were in a steep-sided box canyon in the Panoche Hills . A total of 5 acres within the Y-shaped canyon were impacted by the tire fire . Drainage from the canyon flowed directly into Little Panoche Creek located 300 yards to the north. The tire fire was sending very dense smoke plumes into the Central Valley that was visible from many miles away. The fire threatened PG&E ' s Intertie transmission power lines that supplied 500, 000 volts of electricity throughout the western United States . 2 . Location of the Incident The site was located in a rural area approximately three miles west of Interstate Highway 5 (figure 1) . The nearest community, Firebaugh, was located fourteen miles west of the site . The City of Fresno was located fifty-three miles to the southeast . The surrounding land was used for sheep grazing, farming and other agricultural uses . 3 . Initial Notification and Response On May 22 , EPA was notified by Cal-EPA' s duty officer. EPA immediately mobilized their Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team (START) contractor to assess the situation and provide technical assistance to the first responders . Upon arrival at the scene, the massive piles of exposed tires were fully involved in the fire. There were an estimated 1-2 million tires on fire in the lower portion of the canyon. The upper portion of the canyon was a landfill that contained an estimated 2-3 million buried tires . The PG&E power lines crossed over the middle of the landfill (figure 2) . Although the buried tires appeared to be minimally affected, the flames were encroaching on the landfill . The