A two-acre patch of land north of
Fillmore has heated up to 800 degrees, and firefighters and geologists are
unsure why.
By Joanna Lin,
August 5, 2008
A patch of land in
"It's a thermal anomaly," said Ron Oatman,
spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.
Firefighters responded to reports of a blaze there a month and a half ago,
when observers noticed smoke rising from the parched scrub. But when they
arrived, they found no flames.
Firefighters and geologists who have surveyed the area in the Sespe Oil Field are uncertain what's causing the heat, but
they do have a theory.
Allen King, a retired geologist with the U.S. Forest Service who went to the
site Friday, said the smoking ground is "a normal occurrence" that
does not appear to be the result of human activity.
The hot spot is in
an area considered to be an active landslide that has shifted for more than 60
years. Several hundred feet below its cracked surface lie
pockets of gas, tar and oil.
King said he suspects cracks along the landslide's
slope allow oxygen to enter into the earth and hydrocarbon material to
"seep out" of the fine-grain shale. The combination can create
underground combustion, he said.
King said the depth at which hydrocarbon material can be found "varies
tremendously" and that he does not know at what depth the combustion in
the oil field is occurring. The 812-degree temperature was measured Friday
about a foot below the surface, he said. No other temperature checks have been
made since, according to Oatman.
During Friday's visit to the hot spot, smoke rose through five cracks in the
ground. From a distance, it looked like "a small, smoldering camp
fire," Oatman said. The smoke comes and goes, he
said, and fire officials expect it will last until the next heavy rainfall,
when water and mud plug the fissures.
The steep, rugged terrain is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and
leased by Seneca Resources Corp. The area is gated off from public access and
is free of equipment and buildings.
The hot spot is not considered to be a threat to public safety, Oatman said, and the Fire Department is monitoring the area
daily.
The 3,000-acre Sespe Oil Field was discovered in 1887
and has since produced about 50 million barrels of oil, said David Christy,
spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management. The field contains more than 300
oil wells, 210 of which are active. In January 2007, about 200 to 300 gallons
of oil spilled into a nearby creek after a pipe containing a mixture of
groundwater and oil burst.
Jeff Kuyper, executive director of Los Padres ForestWatch, said he had not heard of hot spots in the oil
field but was concerned about their potential effect on the nearby Sespe Condor Sanctuary and the forest's fire-prone nature.
"It's just a disaster waiting to happen . . . regardless of what the cause
is," he said.
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