Huntington Beach Happenings
by: Chris MacDonald
Published: January 20, 2025
HUNTINGTON BEACH...Happy Birthday to Zack's Pier Plaza & Zack's Beach Boulevard Owner Mike Ali.
Homeowners If you own your home and you live in it, you can apply to have a $7,000 exemption against your tax base until February 15th, 2025.
Huntington Beach Assistant City Clerk Juan Esquivel shared a link to the next Huntington Beach City Council Meeting on Tuesday January 21st, 2025 at 6pm.
Huntington Beach City Historian Jerry Person Presents
The Great Fire of 1949
The day begun on a peaceful Friday morning with the air having just the hint of a cool June mist. People were driving to work along our wide stretches of Pacific Coast Highway, while others that morning were still home having their morning breakfast.
Out in our oil fields the walking beams of the oil well pumps nodded up and down to each other along Pacific Coast Highway as oil workers were checking their wells.
The first signs that this June 24, 1949 morning would be different came from a low rumbling sound deep within the earth. It was 9:25 a.m. and all of a sudden one of the wells at 23rd Street (Goldenwest) and PCH shot over 100 barrels of water and mud into the air. In less then an instant, gas and oil followed the mud and when the gas ignited, it sent flames over a hundred feet into the air.
Five Standard Oil Company workmen nearby received first and second degree burns, the most serious of the five being Huntington Beach oidworker Melvin Brown, who was burned the most.
Huntington Beach Fire Chief Jack Sargent quickly mobilized his men, but the well's pressure increased, sending flames higher and higher into the sky and black oil oozing across PCH and over the bluffs and down into the ocean below.
Sargent was now joined by Police Chief Don Blosson and Lifeguard Chief Delbert "Bud" Higgins along with James Sayer and Oscar Stricklin from Standard Oil. The Highway Patrol and our local police sealed off the coast highway to traffic and the Pacific Electric Red Cars were stopped.
Throughout that Friday the orange flames could be seen for several miles around. By now a dozen pumpers were streaming water on the 3500-foot deep well and onto nearby wells in an effort to keep them from igniting.
By Friday night the oil had stopped flowing but the gas continued unabated and the flames could be seen as far as Catalina as firemen and oilmen worked side by side battling the intense heat. The water was now discontinued and instead liquid mud was sprayed on the inferno.
Hissing from the flaming well could be heard for hundreds of feet in all directions and the earth vibrated under the firemen's feet. The oilworkers worked quickly removing countless barrels of oil that had been stored around the flaming well.
Saturday, June 25th came and went, the steel 100-foot derrick above the flaming well had now melted and fell across Pacific Coast Highway.
There were hundreds of onlookers by now to contend with and traffic on Beach Boulevard was causing a heavy traffic jam a mile and a half long.
Flames now reached 150 feet into the air and the intense heat was as if hell had surfaced. The heat began melting the asphalt pavement of PCH and had warped the Red Car's tracks. Throughout Saturday night and into Sunday our brave firefighters continued battling the devil's torch.
Monday morning came and a new approach was taken, salt water would be pumped down nearby wells under high pressure at 1000 barrels an hour, still the flames continued and another method tried.
The firemen would use high pressure hoses to force the flames away from the well opening long enough for a 100-foot crane to drop a plug into the opening.
This was tried and it worked and by 1:05 p.m. Monday the firemen and oilmen were able to spray a blanket of water fog onto the well and extinguish the inferno. With the fire out, the area looked like a war zone with all the twisted metal about.
What had begun as a quiet peaceful Friday morning now became a $200,000 nightmare and throughout those 3 1/2 sleepless days our firefighters stayed to the very end to put out one of Huntington Beach's most spectacular fire.