I have vivid memories of it—I was in third grade, living in east Long Beach about six miles from it. Our next-door neighbor worked there, at the Atlantic-Richfield facility. Black smoke covered the whole LA Basin for days. When the sun peaked underneath, the strange lighting result reminded me of a night baseball game. I think it was the first large-scale tragedy of which I was really aware.
My dad took us up on Signal Hill soon after the fire to see
the damage. I was 5 years old, lived on Tevis Ave in Long Beach.