Page 6 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1980
National
Burning oil destroys 9 homes Containment of brush fires nea
when broken pipe explodes
United Press International
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Pet
roleum spewing from a ruptured
pipeline exploded Monday night,
demolishing nine homes and forcing
residents to flee a river of flame
gushing through their neighbor
hood.
“We’ve counted nine totally des
troyed homes with a few others,
three or four, damaged to some ex
tent,” said Robert Leslie, city fire
captain.
The burned shells of a dozen auto
mobiles smoldered in the street be
neath 70-foot palm trees burning like
giant torches.
"We know of only three or four
injuries, and that seems kind of mira
culous given the extent of the fire,”
Leslie said. “It happened at a good
time. People were awake and aware
and had the presence of mind to get
out.”
Long Beach Memorial Hospital
and Pacific Hospital were placed on
alert and four people reportedly
were being treated. One unidenti
fied man was burned critically.
It took two hours for 90 city and
Los Angeles County firefighters to
smother flames with a blanket of
foam spread 3 feet deep over the
block, where homes are valued at
about $70,000.
A helicopter dropped water on
flames shooting 30 feet into the sky
near the Long Beach Freeway.
. Leslie said flaming fuel pouring
from the 10-inch pipeline flowed
“like a river of fire down the gutters
of the street. ” He described the line
as “an old pipe under pressure that
probably just gave way. ”
Girl slain
awaiting
police aid
United Press International
MIAMI— Rena Pollard, 13, di
aled 911 and told the emergency dis
patcher in a calm voice, “There’s
someone trying to break into my
house right now.”
Dispatcher Glenn Metzler asked
her address and how to spell her
name. Calmly, she answered. He
classified her call as routine.
When a patrol car finally arrived
40 minutes later, Rena Pollard was
dead — raped and stabbed.
Police weren’t dispatched on an
emergency basis until Rena’s mother
called to say her daughter had been
killed.
Officials said Monday they are in
vestigating the handling of the girl’s
emergency call last Friday after-
Metzler, an 18-year Public Safety
Department veteran with a good
work record, may lose his job, Clyde
Burdick, supervisor at the Dade
Emergency Communications Cen
ter, said.
The girl was raped and stabbed as
she babysat for her infant brother
and sister, police said. Authorities
are searching for a teen-age boy who
lived nearby.
Metzler classified the girl’s call as a
“34,” a routine disturbance in which
no one’s life is in imminent danger.
For such calls, a police dispatcher
may send “the first available unit” to
respond. No cars were available at
the time of Rena’s call, Burdick said.
Either before or after calling 911,
Rena called her mother at work.
Mrs. Pollard rushed home to find her
daughter’s body. Only then were
police dispatched, Burdick said.
The transcript of her call shows
that among several questions Metz
ler asked the girl, including her
address, how to spell her name and
whether her home was a house or
apartment, was this exchange:
“Who’s out there?” Metzler
asked.
“Some kid. He’s trying to get in,”
she said.
“She was extremely calm,” Bur
dick said. “I’m not trying to make
excuses or anything, but she was ex
ceptionally calm. There did not
appear to be any fear on her part. ”
Thieves take
million dollar
Easter eggs
United Press International
OSHKOSH, Wis. — The famed
Faberge Imperial Easter Eggs may
be too famous for the thieves who
stole them, says the director of the
museum from which they dis
appeared.
Because the eggs are so well
known, they may be very difficult to
fence. The thieves may be forced to
ransom them instead, Ralph Bufano,
head of the Paine Art Center, said
Monday.
The Eggs, laced with gems and
gold, were created by Peter Carl
Faberge for Russian nobility at the
turn of the century.
The five eggs and some assorted
jewels, valued at more than $1 mil
lion, were stolen from the art center
Oct. 22.
Shortly after the explosion, looters
struck the area and police increased
patrols.
Kem Loui, 34, a resident who lives
50 feet from the ruptured pipeline,
was watching television when he
heard the explosion.
“I was watching Monday night
football on TV and I heard a real loud
boom,” Loui said. “When I went
outside, there was fire everywhere
and all I could do was watch it bum
all those houses.
“Five or six months ago, men were
working on oil pipes in that same
spot. I don’t know what they did or
what they repaired, but it was defi
nitely the same spot.”
United Press International
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif-
Firefighters today neared full con
tainment of the last of seven brush
fires that burned for a week, killing
five people and causing $72 million
worth of destruction.
Mike Mortensson, U.S. Forest
Service spokesman, said a 28,200-
acre fire, which has burned for a
week in the Cleveland National
Forest about 15 miles southeast of
Orange, Calif., was 95 percent con
tained Monday night.
Firefighters had managed to save a
1,200-acre “island” in the massive
blaze, he said.
Oregon fireman Steve Johnson,
33, died Monday at San Antonio
Community Hospital of an apparent
heart attack suffered while fighting a
6,000-acre brush fire in the Cleve
land National Forest, 8 miles east of
Camp Pendleton.
He was a member of a 20-man
crew sent Nov. 26 from the Maple-
ton Ranger District of the Siuslaw
National Forest.
The week-long series of fires killed
four other people, destroyed 383
homes and blackened about 80,000
acres. Authorities reported the 4,000
firefighters from around the nation
who battled the blazes suffered more
than 26,000 minor injuries, such as
cuts and bee stings, and 39 major
injuries, including burns,
Two brush fires that bi
of 5,655 acres in subu
nardino were folly «
day.
Rats, snakes and o
wildlife, which had
flames, came closer
searching for food, and Sn;
dino police said they had sir,
dozen 10-inch-long rats tin,
the rubble of burned out
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