City Says Fairfax Gas Leak Burnoff May Take Months : 23 Injured in Explosion at Store : BLAST: 23 Injured; Burnoff of Gas Could Take Months, Fire Dept. Says

A controlled burnoff of methane gas pockets under the Fairfax District, rocked Sunday with an explosion that injured 23 people in a discount store, could take months to carry out, Los Angeles Deputy Fire Chief Craig Drummond said today.

Meantime, flames from the smelly waste gas continued to dance eerily from fissures in sidewalks and pavement in the area, which has been roped off along a half-mile strip of West 3rd Street between Gardner Street and Fairfax Avenue.

Drummond said letting the small fires continue to burn “is the safest thing to do” right now. Scores of police and firemen were standing by in the neighborhood this morning.

Drummond said drilling holes into these methane pockets--apparently left over from old oil and natural gas fields in the area--will begin within 24 hours. He said there may be multiple pockets containing “several million cubic feet” of the waste gas.

160 Businesses Evacuated

Because of the flames and the danger of further explosions--there was one major blast and two smaller ones Sunday--an estimated 160 businesses in the Farmers Market and two big shopping centers were evacuated, and the area was closed to the public. Hancock Park School also was closed.

Drummond said he could not say when it will be safe to reopen the evacuated area.

Drummond stressed that businesses can be safely reopened once pressure and gas readings drop off. He could not predict when that might be, however.

City Councilman John Ferraro, in whose 4th District the disaster occurred, estimated that the closed businesses would lose about $500,000 a day.

No Damage Estimate

There was no immediate estimate of the damage to the shattered Ross Dress for Less Store, which was wrecked by the first explosion at 4:47 p.m.

It was at first feared that two people may have been trapped in the building, but fire officials said today that everyone has now been accounted for. All of the injured are either employees or customers of the store in the 6200 block of West 3rd Street.

Three of the injured were reported in serious condition today and three others were reported either in satisfactory or fair condition. Seventeen others who suffered minor burns, cuts and bruises did not require hospitalization.

Drummond, who estimated that the gas pockets may be from 8 to 30 feet underground, said at least four holes will be drilled in the immediate area of the explosions. Derricks will be erected, he said, and the gas piped up and burned off safely at the top, as is done in oil fields.

Outside Contractor

Neither Drummond nor Ferraro could estimate the cost of the drilling and burnoff operation. An outside contractor will be used to do the drilling and burnoff, according to Ferraro and Drummond.

Drummond and Ferraro spoke to reporters this morning after a meeting with city and state emergency officials and geologists.

Jim Radcliffe of Southern California Gas Co. said natural gas lines in the area have been closed in the area as a precautionary measure. Natural gas, however, was not involved in any of Sunday’s explosions.

Radcliffe said the methane gas apparently was left over from the old Gilmore and Salt Lake oil and natural gas fields in the area, which operated from the early 1900s until they were entirely phased out about 1960.

It is not known what ignited the gas Sunday.

Frequent Complaints

Fire officials said residents of the area, which is not far from the La Brea Tar Pits, often complain of gas seeping into basements from the old oil dome below the district.

Authorities said it was impossible to control the gas feeding the flames that followed the first explosion Sunday--and the flames burned through the night and continued to burn today. The first explosion came just before 5 p.m. Sunday.

Chris Moore, a security guard who lives a block from the store, said it interrupted his afternoon television viewing.

‘Everything ... Shaking’

“It was almost like an earthquake,” he said. “Windows and everything was shaking. I looked outside and I could see debris two or three hundred feet up in the air.”

In all, 17 city fire companies were sent to the scene, along with paramedics and ambulances.

“It was a mess,” said Harold Conkling, 33, as he stood on the edge of the parking lot sadly surveying the remains of his 1984 Cadillac, left singed and sitting on four flat tires by the blast and fire.

Came Out a Minute Before

“I don’t mind the car too much, it was insured,” he said. “And I don’t care about being stuck here, either. I can call a cab or get a friend to pick me up.

“But I had come out of that building just a minute before it went boom--and I’m wondering just how much of a lifetime’s supply of good luck I used up here?”

Traffic Sunday night was snarled for blocks in the vicinity of the busy 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue intersection, and crowds of onlookers added to the problems of police.

Automobiles Wrecked

Automobiles in the parking lot were wrecked--their windows cracked and their paint blistered--by the explosion and fire, and the shock wave from the blast smashed windows as far as three blocks away.

Also severely damaged were a beauty shop, a bank, cafeteria, fish market, variety store and paint store nearby.

Most restaurants in the area, which had just begun their evening rush, tried at first to continue to operate but then, one by one, quietly closed for the night as hours passed and the situation remained unchanged.

Firefighters used a bulldozer to help the searching for other possible victims inside the building, and a helicopter hovered overhead. Then the Fire Department ordered the entire area surrounding the store evacuated.

Buildup of Fumes

Police finally managed to move the crowd across the street to relative safety as night fell, but there were still plenty of spectators on hand when the two smaller blasts shook the ground, opening new cracks in the parking lot. The cracks promptly spouted columns of flame, and firefighters evacuated the store building and the entire parking lot area.

“Until we can figure out where the fumes are coming from--and stop them--it’s just too dangerous to send anyone back in there,” a fire department spokesman said.

But half an hour later, still with no definite answers to those questions, the search crews were back at work.