Southern California fire officials evacuate 40K residents over chemical leak in Orange County

Orange County fire officials ordered the evacuation of over 40,000 residents in several California cities Friday, warning them that a leaking toxic chemical tank at a nearby aerospace facility would inevitably fail and could potentially explode.  

The tank itself is located in the Southern California city of Garden Grove, but evacuation orders have also been placed for residents in other surrounding and nearby cities, including Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Stanton and Westminster, CBS News reported. 

Evacuation orders were first issued Thursday, but the situation seemed stable and the orders were lifted Thursday night. They were reissued Friday after a valve on a tank became inoperable, according to NBC News.

Orange County Fire Authority Chief Craig Covey told reporters in a news briefing that the industrial tank is estimated to contain 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, which is a "highly volatile" and "highly flammable" toxic substance used in producing plastics.

"This is gonna happen unless some brilliant guy behind me here figures out how we can mitigate this incident," Covey said. "This thing is gonna fail. We don't know when."

Fire officials said there are three tanks in total at the facility, with one of the three compromised in its cooling system, which has cooled the tank down enough to stop chemicals from leaking into the air, though Covey admitted he did not know when an explosion could occur. 

"Right now, there is no active gas leak coming off that thing," Covey said. "We have cooled it down enough that the purge valve that is on top of it is no longer purging any kind of product from the liquids there." 

The county fire chief added that his team is preparing for the worst but "expect for things to get better." 

The cause of the leak remains under investigation. No injuries have been reported. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.