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o . Oscrept.bac Page 3' California Air Resources Board (CARB) was setting up a mobile air monitoring station (the rover van) at an off-site and downwind location. Prior to EPA arrival, the CDF had set-up an Incident Command System (ICS) and met with local and State agencies to determine an effective fire suppression strategy. The meeting concluded with the decision to allow the fire to burn while monitoring the status of the PG&E power lines . With EPA on-scene, the ICS was replaced with a Unified Command (UC) . During the initial assessment, the EPA Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) , Dan Shane, conducted inspections of the site with CDF, Cal-EPA and the State Fire Marshall . Also present was Manuel Choperena, the deceased property owner' s son. Mr. Choperena was able to explain disposal practices and estimate the location and boundaries of exposed and buried tires . Closer inspection revealed flames eminating from open crevices along the eastern face of the landfill . Based on this new information, the FOSC presented a plan to the UC that called for direct action to control and contain the fire and potential oil runoff . The major tasks would be : o prevent the spreading of the fire into the landfill area by constructing an earthen fire break. o put out the landfill fire by excavating and extinguishing burning tires . o mitigate the potential for oil discharge into the creek by constructing an underflow dam at the base of the canyon. On May 23 , the FOSC utilized his $200K authority and mobilized EPA' s Emergency Response Cleanup Services (EROS) contractor and the U. S . Coast Guard Pacific Strike Team. 4 . Potential Impacts to Public Health and the Environment A major concern of any large tire fire is the potential for release of high volumes of pyrolitic oil . Pyrolysis is the low temperature distillation of a tire in the absence of air. The pyrolizing process melts scrap tires into a liquid. The by-products include steel belts, bead wire, and carbon black. An average passenger tire contains about 2 . 5 gallons of oil . This site reportedly contained up to five million tires . A complete pyrolization of all five million tires would generate an oil spill equivalent to that of the Exxon Valdez which spilled eleven million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. An example of this process was the tire dump in Winchester, Virginia, where an estimated six to nine million tires burned for nine months . Eight hundred thousand gallons of oil were recovered. The oil was taken to a local refinery and refined into fuel oil . The potential for a pyrolitic oil discharge threatened the Little Panoche Creek.