I read that the Oakland FD arrived on the scene and put water on the fire but decided to let it burn out rather than apply foam to put the fire out. The story said that they decided not to apply foam because the foam chemical residue might pollute the Bay. Using foam might have stopped the collapse of the structure and forestalled the nightmare commute that we will suffer for months. I'm sure we will be hearing a lot more in the future about the decision to let it burn out without using foam.
I agree there is going to be many many heated discussions about that decision, and it should fuel the efforts of Caltrans to make some sort of temporary repairs in the most urgent manner.
At least they will have the experiance from the big quake to repair this quicker than most people think.
I checked this because it would make a good story about unintendend consequences (the pollution costs of the longer drives will far outweigh the costs of the foam).
But it appears it wouldn’t have mattered.
From a news account:
“We didn’t know it was a tanker truck that was involved. As soon as that was established, we immediately upgraded to a large-scale incident response team and added two more engines and two trucks,” Price said.
Firefighters soon saw that the upper ramp was buckling, Price said, and by 4:02 — seven minutes after they arrived — it had collapsed. The firefighters changed their strategy for battling the blaze.”
The road was already “gone” when they got there, and collapsed 7 minutes later, not long enough for the foam to make a diference.
The article DID say they didn’t use foam, but that’s because after the collapse there was no point in putting out the fire any more:
“With no structures or lives in jeopardy, and with 8,000 gallons of flammable fuel involved, you’re basically better off letting it burn itself out,” said Price.
Firefighters used only water to control the blaze, which took about two hours, Price said. Had there been lives at risk, firefighters would have used firefighting foam, but the chemicals in it then would have polluted the nearby bay.”