The Eagle Recycling plant received complaints by community
members in the months leading up to the fire, but the owner didn’t
receive any code violations from Calfire because the state agency
doesn’t have the ability to enforce the county’s code, Calfire
spokesman Jonathan Pangburn said.
The Eagle Recycling plant received complaints by community members in the months leading up to the fire, but the owner didn’t receive any code violations from Calfire because the state agency doesn’t have the ability to enforce the county’s code, Calfire spokesman Jonathan Pangburn said.
In the months leading up to the fire, Calfire and Hollister’s Code Enforcement Office received multiple complaints about the building and the overflowing recyclables. Calfire couldn’t enforce the code because the county didn’t appoint it to do so – instead, it could give only recommendations.
That fire Tuesday at the 2400 San Juan Road site caused massive destruction at the recycling facility. The blaze burned hundreds of cardboard bundles and largely destroyed a commercial warehouse. Calfire crews remained on the scene Friday – as the fire continued smoking – to ensure the blaze doesn’t flare up again. There is no official cause at this point.
Stacey Watson of the county’s planning department is listed as the code enforcement officer, but code enforcing doesn’t just fall on her, Assistant Planning Director Byron Turner said. All code enforcement is a “team effort,” Turner said.
“It’s unfair to say it all falls on one person, but it’s all spread out,” Turner said. “It goes by a case-by-case basis.”
Turner wasn’t sure if the county filed a code violation against Eagle Recycling but staff members have visited the business recently, he said.
Calfire also sent Pebble Beach fire prevention Capt. David Jones and the county’s fire marshal in-training Richard Lopez to visit the property on multiple occasions. Jones and Lopez visited almost every week for the past three months.
Here is video from the aftermath. The story continues below it:
During their meetings with Eagle Recycling owner Ernie Chambers, Jones and Lopez discovered multiple possible violations regarding loose material in the exterior of the structure, Jones said. Some of the material was too close to the building and the property’s borders. Also, some of the material was not bundled properly.
According to California Fire Code 304, which relates to combustible waste material, the recyclables shouldn’t be placed within five feet of walls or structures.
“The exterior is what we were working on the most so it wouldn’t be a hazard,” Jones said.
With the courtyard’s set-up, only a small roadway – big enough for a forklift – divided the tall stacks of material apart, Jones said. When they first arrived at the business, the stacks of recyclables were taller than the property’s building.
“We told them they need to clean it up,” Jones said.
The officer gave Chambers multiple recommendations to help alleviate the fire risk, and Chambers was listening. Three weeks ago, Jones dropped off seven to 10 fire extinguishers. An extinguisher class was planned for next week.
Last month, Chambers had the sprinkler system inside the structure tested, but during the fire, the heat damaged the sprinkler heads, Jones said.
The sprinkler system wasn’t made for the high density of items inside, Jones said.
“The system worked,” Jones said. ” The effectiveness wasn’t good at the end but it did its job in the beginning.”
Chambers had been slowly diminishing the fire risk, Jones said.
“Of the variety of recommendations, 100 percent of them were either completed or in the process of being completed,” Pangburn said. “But he was having some difficulty moving some of the materials.”
Chambers said his usual paper mill stopped accepting his product in May causing a backlog and overflow of material. At one point Chambers had to turn away recyclables.
In June, the paper mill started accepting the material again and the overflow was depleting, but there still was an over-abundance of material.
“It was a mess,” Jones said. “Too much coming in and not enough going out.”
Calfire couldn’t enforce any fire code violations, though. Instead, the agency could only recommend mitigation and educate the business owner, Jones said. Only a board of supervisors-appointed official could enforce the fire code. Therefore, the firefighters had to rely on communication with other officials in the area.
“That’s why we all try to communicate with each other,” Jones said.
In an e-mail to the Free Lance, the city’s Code Enforcement Officer Mike Chambless reported multiple complaints, but they were all sent to county code enforcement, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the County Health Department because the plant is not within the city’s jurisdiction.
