Fire raises safety question

Jace Radke and Mary Manning

Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2001 | 9:51 a.m.

A solid white crystal, ammonium perchlorate has the following properties:

SOURCE: Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Hazard Information Bulletin.

A fire at a model rocket plant in eastern Las Vegas that began shortly after noon Monday was still burning this morning.

The blaze, which forced an evacuation within a half-mile radius, was caused by a spark from a manufacturing machine that leaped to raw materials, setting them ablaze, firefighters said.

The fire at AeroTech Inc. injured six people, including two workers -- a 24-year-old man and a 65-year-old man -- who were in critical condition this morning at University Medical Center. Another worker, a 52-year-old man, was in good condition at UMC this morning. Three firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation at UMC and released Monday night.

Hundreds of residents were evacuated as firefighters contended with multiple explosions at the plant, 1955 S. Palm St. Residents were beginning to return home this morning from the evacuation site at Valley High School, where the Red Cross had set up a temporary shelter.

There were two initial explosions at 12:15 p.m. and that fire was put out within an hour. A third explosion rocked the plant at about 4:20 p.m.

"The spark caused the fire and it resulted in the bigger fire," Bob Leinbach, Clark County Fire Department spokesman, said this morning. "It was accidental."

The investigation is continuing and fire officials are going through the company's records to determine if permits to store the chemicals had been obtained.

That's the "million-dollar question," Clark County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky said this morning.

"Did the company have the permits to have that material, and if so, who knew?" La-Sky said, adding that his department's own hazardous materials experts did not yet know the answer.

Dozens of residents learned the company was in their backyard while watching the baseball playoffs and reading a warning to evacuate that scrolled along the bottom of the screen.

"Residents want to know, we want to know, and right now there's no answers," La-Sky said. "This is going to end up being a big accountability issue."

Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams said she would demand answers today on why the rocket fuel that exploded Monday was allowed to be stored in a residential neighborhood.

"Why did they allow 2,500 pounds of ammonium perchlorate and 800 pounds of magnesium in a residential area?" asked Williams, who represents the neighborhood around AeroTech's warehouse, near St. Louis Avenue and Boulder Highway. Both chemicals, used in rocket fuel, are highly flammable.

The fire gutted the AeroTech building and caused an estimated $12 million to $15 million in damages.

Kelley Graves today summed up the feelings of many of the evacuated residents of the area: "What the hell was a rocket plant doing in our neighborhood?"

Kelley and Linda Graves were living in a temporary residence in a nearby recreational vehicle park when they were evacuated Monday night. Their permanent residence will be in the Riviera Mobile Home Park across the street from the burned-out Aerotech business.

"We already made the downpayment and signed the papers," Kelley Graves said. "Years ago a business like this (PEPCON) damn near blew up Henderson," Kelley said, referring to the 1988 industrial explosion that killed two. "When are they going to learn not to put these kind of materials so close to neighborhoods?"

Michael Davis, a resident of the Riviera Mobile Home Park, who like the Graves spent the night in a makeshift Red Cross shelter at the Valley High School gym, echoed those sentiments.

"They put our lives and our homes at risk -- whoever issued those permits should have their brains examined," Davis said.

Chuck Pulsipher, Clark County zoning administrator, said this morning that the storage of 2,500 pounds of ammonium perchlorate would not require a special permit in a light industrial zone. State law only requires a special permit for a hazard material site for levels in excess of 7,500 pounds, Pulsipher said.

"Based on what I know, it (the factory) is fine where it is," Pulsipher said.

Pulsipher said he is continuing research this morning. The mobile home park across the street from the plant was built in 1962, more than two decades before Aerotech moved to its current site in a roughly 2-acre light industrial park surrounded by more residential development.

Davis expressed concerns that more than 60 percent of the senior mobile home park could not be evacuated because many are bedridden and that their caregivers would not be allowed past police blockades early today to assist them.

"I am in my 60s, but a great number of our park residents are in their 80s and 90s -- we lose on average 19 residents a year through natural deaths," Davis said. "We may find when this is over that a number of those who could not be evacuated are in pretty bad shape because of the fumes they inhaled."

Jack Nims, 68, also a resident of the mobile home park, said, "I am going to be writing a whole lot of letters" to officials, inquiring about why he and others were not made aware of such a business in his neighborhood.

"You can ask every resident of the park and I'll bet no one had a clue that type of business was there," Nims said. "There are a lot of automotive repair places there that many of us go to because of convenience, but we just didn't know this (rocket plant) was there. I ride my bicycle past there every day."

Kelley Graves said he too frequents the industrial park for service and lamented that a transmission business that did "two excellent transmission jobs" for him was lost in the blaze.

Linda Graves said not only did she lose a night's sleep over being evacuated, she also had to call in to her boss at the Stardust hotel, where she works as a baker, and tell them she could not report for her shift this morning.

Apparently workers saw the sparks and the small fire begin when the raw materials ignited, a fire officials said.

The chemically fueled flames reached as high as 40 feet at the plant at 1955 Palm St. Bystanders could feel the heat from the periodic explosions from as far as half a mile away.

"The explosions were just huge," said Barbara Steininger, a cook at the Lucky Nickel Saloon, 2075 Palm St. "The smoke started coming in our kitchen, and we knew we better get out."

The unstable nature of the chemicals caught firefighters by surprise about 4:20 p.m., when a third explosion rocked the plant.

"We thought we had it contained, and we had a team of about six firefighters putting down foam inside the building when a barrel of magnesium ignited," La-Sky said. "It was a very close call, and the fireball was right behind them as they got out.

"It is amazing no one was killed. We're dealing with extremely volatile chemicals, and we really don't know what they're going to do next."

Firefighters battled the blaze until 5 p.m., when fire officials pulled crews back as a safety precaution, allowing the fire to burn. It was expected to be out this afternoon.

"We're not going to risk any lives to save a building," La-Sky said.

About 80 firefighters and 20 units from the county, North Las Vegas and Las Vegas fire departments were called to the blaze, La-Sky said.

Authorities evacuated the neighborhood, and displaced residents took shelter at Valley High School.

About 30 people displaced from the Riviera Vegas Mobile Home Park, 2038 S. Palm St., trickled into Valley High School after 6:30 p.m.

Catherine Tuttle, 82, who lives in the park, said she did not have time to find her oxygen tank before being evacuated to the high school.

"I saw the evacuation on TV," Tuttle said, breathing from a portable tank provided by the Red Cross. "I couldn't get my oxygen out in time."

Tuttle soon exhausted the temporary tank, and was taken by ambulance to Sunrise Hospital for oxygen and care about an hour after the evacuation began.

The fire sent a billowing cloud of smoke that shifted in color from black to white to red and back again.

Despite the constant cloud, Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Chapman said that the Environmental Protection Agency did not consider the smoke hazardous to valley residents.

"Of course, smoke is always dangerous, but this smoke is not considered hazardous," Chapman said.

Aerotech's explosion is the second industrial blast in Nevada within a month. A series of explosions on Sept. 17 at Depressurized Technologies International, an aerosol recycling plant in Northern Nevada, left one man dead and four others hospitalized.

Ammonium perchlorate was the cause of the Henderson PEPCON explosion in May 1988 that killed two and injured more than 300. Ammonium perchlorate at the Pacific Engineering & Production Co. of Nevada plant was ignited by sparks from a welding torch, triggering four explosions that rocked the Las Vegas Valley.

PEPCON moved to Cedar City, Utah in 1989 and changed its name to Western Electrochemical Co.

Aerotech was incorporated in Nevada on April 11, 1988, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

Sun reporters Ed Koch, Jeff Libby and Keith Paul contributed to this story.

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