Residents Ask for Additional Asbestos Testing after Navy Base Fire

On April 14, Alameda fire officials assured residents that a fire which destroyed a former U.S. Navy military hospital did not contaminate nearby residences with asbestos.

The three-story, 150,000-square-foot building, which was built in the 1940s, converted to a storage depot in the 1970s and abandoned in the late 1990s, burned for about 19 hours on March 29 before being extinguished.

The two-alarm fire was preceded by two smaller fires, which the fire department called suspicious. The building, a former target for graffiti, teen parties and area homeless seeking refuge, was slated to be deconstructed this summer, but was instead demolished one day after the fire.

According to Fire Marshal Michael Fisher, Bay Area Air Quality Management District investigators sampled the air downwind of the fire on March 29 and found no asbestos, though the smoke did lead firefighters to issue a health advisory warning for everyone living to the west within a mile of the fire.

Residents are not reassured, particularly as a chunk of 1 by 2-inch debris found in Denise Lai's front yard, and presumably from the building's roof, contained 10 percent non-friable asbestos, based on sampling by Western Analytical Laboratory based in Arleta.

According to Lai, who lives one mile away from the fire, the piece landed in her yard during what looked like a rain of black snow. "Can you imagine what it looked like closer to the fire?" she added.

City officials, who met with investigators on April 20, continue to insist the debris does not pose a health hazard, noting that asbestos isn't easily released into the air, but they also agreed to investigate any reports from residents who continue to have safety concerns.

Fire certainly constitutes one way in which asbestos particles are released, and a building constructed in the 1940s is almost certain to contain it.

Asbestos, a mineral containing microscopic fibers that can irritate the lung, is the only known cause of mesothelioma, a particularly lethal form of cancer that typically lies dormant for three to five decades before being diagnosed. Patients with mesothelioma generally die within 18 months of exposure.

Asbestos, used as insulation and in floor tiles, tile adhesives and acoustical ceiling tiles up until about 1980, is also known to cause a host of other illnesses, from asbestosis to cancer of the digestive tract (esophagus, pharnyx, stomach, colon and rectum). Rarer but equally dangerous cancers of the mesothelial tissue enclosing human sexual organs also occur.

The Alameda fire department says it didn't get any complaints while the fire was burning, in spite of a fairly brisk wind blowing ash and debris westward toward Otis Avenue and Oakland, whose firefighters were first on the scene. A final report from the air quality district is due later in the week.

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