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Lost Hills well fire rages
Filed: November 24, 1998
By STEVE E. SWENSON
Californian staff writer
e-mail: sswenson@bakersfield.com
<Picture: See related graphic>LOST HILLS — A descendant company of the famed well-tamer Red Adair swooped into Lost Hills on Tuesday and geared up for at least a week-long fight to control an oil-well fire that is billowing flames 200 feet high.
The fire was caused by a blowout at 8:30 p.m. Monday as 17 employees were at the drilling site, about two miles north of Lost Hills just east of the California Aqueduct. There were no injuries.<Picture>Spectators standing along the edge of the California Aqueduct watch flames from a well blowout near Lost Hills.
Henry Barrios / The CalifornianClick here for a map of the location
It is difficult to determine what caused the blowout because of intense heat from pluming fireballs, which sounded like a jet engine, and a collapsed rig around the well head, officials said.
Oil well firefighting experts battling the blaze are from the Houston-based Boots & Coots International Well Control, a company whose roots date back to 1950 and oil fire conqueror Red Adair. It could take months to put out the Lost Hills fire, Boots & Coots officials said.
"The million-dollar question is whether the blowout was inside or outside the well," Boots & Coots spokesman Brian Krause said.
If inside, the battle could be over in a week or two, he said. Krause suspects that is the case because of the depth of the well, which is more than 3 miles.
However, if it is outside, the blaze could take several months while a "high-tech relief well" is drilled to go underneath the existing well, he said. The existing well took six months to drill.
If unchecked, the fire could rage for months, Krause said.
But right now, it's too early to tell what type of fire it is, he said.
The fire is on land owned by Chevron Oil Co., and leased for oil production by Bellevue Resources Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Elk Point Resources Inc. of Calgary, Canada.
Aidan Walsh, president and chief executive officer of Elk Point Resources Inc. of Calgary, arrived at the fire scene Tuesday afternoon.
He said he was pleased that none of the workers were injured and that Boots & Coots specialists were on hand to put the fire out as quickly as possible. The 17 employees at the site Monday night work for the Houston-based Nabors Drilling Co. and a local drilling engineer firm whose name was not released.
While Krause, whose firm has battled 4,000 oil well fires, estimated lost production at at least $1 million a day, Walsh disputed that figure as "pure speculation." Walsh said the dollar loss can't be quantified because the site wasn't in production yet.
Black smoke from the steel and iron drilling rig, and possibly from oil, is rising above the flames and blowing south. Flames about 60 feet in diameter are visible up to 20 miles away.
Clif Calderwood, compliance chief of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, said favorable wind conditions and the remote location will minimize any adverse health affects. Calderwood said drilling operations are not subject to air pollution permits and it's unlikely that any air pollution penalties will be assessed.
All of the rig employees escaped without injury after they were alerted by danger signals. Although officials wouldn't elaborate on what those signals were, warning signs can include a loss of drilling pressure, the smell of natural gas or equipment failures.
"It will be a good Thanksgiving for those people," said Krause, who has worked with Red Adair in other Kern County blowouts that have killed workers, including a 1977 fire at Elk Hills that killed three.
Two workers in Kern County were killed in gas or oil blowouts in 1990 and 1993. There have been 16 gas or oil blowouts since 1990 in Kern County, although most lasted a few hours to a couple of days and didn't result in fires, according to the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.
Krause said the Lost Hills blowout "is in the higher-end caliber."
The operation is located in the middle of 3,000 acres of cotton fields farmed by C.J. Ritchie Co. of Visalia, which is leasing the land from Chevron. Farming supervisor Steve Bottoms said electricity was cut off by the fire, but the farm will use generators for power and other needs.
"We've operated without electricity before," Bottoms said.
Several mobile homes are located within a half-mile of the well head, but no residents were injured.
Firefighters are fighting the blaze by turning high-powered pumps on bulldozer operators, who are clearing an area about 100 yards around the blaze and pulling the molten drilling rig away from the well head. Welders were brought to the scene Tuesday to craft tin screens that will deflect heat from people operating equipment.
Once the well head is cleared, firefighters will ignite a 55-gallon drum of dynamite to create "a void in oxygen," which should put the fire out, Krause said. Further steps will be taken, depending upon the type of blowout, to cap the well head, he said. |
