L.A. River sustained minimal damage in freeway fire, experts say

The Los Angeles River sustained minimal, temporary damage from burning gasoline after a tanker truck overturned at the 2 and 5 freeways, said officials with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The tanker was carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline when it overturned Saturday morning at the freeway junction north of downtown. Numerous witnesses said the river was on fire.

But very little fuel actually reached the river, said Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Department.

“A little bit -- we’re talking less than five or six gallons -- probably escaped into the storm drain and flowed out of the drain into the L.A. River,” Hughan said.

Gasoline burns at high temperatures very quickly, so “virtually all of the fuel was destroyed in the fire,” Hughan said.

He called the situation regarding the river a “perfect storm of good news” because a nearby sandbar collected much of the fuel that would have reached the river.

While the sandbar did absorb some fuel, gasoline evaporates quickly -- a process aided by Saturday’s hot weather -- and the fuel mostly evaporated out of the sand, Hughan said.

The department will not dig up the sand because it will be less damaging to the environment to let the gas evaporate naturally, he said.

“Nature does an amazing job of cleaning itself,” he said.

A Department of Fish and Wildlife cleanup contractor was on the scene a few hours after the truck overturned to vacuum any remaining fuel and water he could see at the scene, Hughan said.

A department warden assessed the river water immediately after the fire and again Sunday.

Had the truck been carrying heavier diesel or oil, which do not burn the way gasoline does, the situation would have been much worse, Hughan said.

Firefighters were deployed Saturday along a mile-long stretch of the river to monitor the spill and the large inferno. The fire’s damage forced the closures throughout the weekend and Monday of portions of the 2 and 5 freeways, leaving traffic gridlocked.

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