The Heat Is On: How Wildfires Affect Onsite Systems

Here’s how septic professionals out west help customers deal with fire damage

The Heat Is On: How Wildfires Affect Onsite Systems

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Wildfires have become a year-round fact of life in California and other parts of the western United States, and while property owners cope with the hardships, onsite companies deal with fire effects, too.

Onsite systems may seem protected because so much is buried in the earth, but that isn’t the case for some components and anything that’s above ground is at risk. Even if flames don’t directly touch a system component, equipment is still vulnerable.

In Santa Rosa, California, operators of BDK Septic Service Benny and Chris Karnes saw firsthand what wildfires can do when two blazes converged on their community in October 2017.

It started with an evacuation. Their shop wasn’t damaged, but they did have to function without electricity in the office for a week.

Fire melted diversion valves between a tank and drainfield, Benny Karnes says. It melted aboveground plastic and fiberglass tanks to the waterline. Control and purge valves on engineered systems melted. Underground components that were buried completely were not damaged and eligible for reuse.

There may also be damage from the equipment used to fight fires. Dawn Long found that out in June 2011 when a wildfire came through the area around Sierra Vista, Arizona, where she and her husband owned American Septic Service. (Her son now has the business.)

“Huge fire trucks and brush trucks were all over people’s properties, and they don’t know where septic tanks are,” she says.

Compaction of soil by equipment wasn’t a problem, but she recalls a broken lid needed to be replaced. Risers were the big problem. They melted a couple feet down into the ground. The remedy was to put on a lid to keep debris from falling into the tank, carefully dig out the hole, and then put on a new riser.

“We did a lot of checking. People wanted their tanks checked the lids checked,” Long says.

Small onsite systems may also have components placed above ground. This is the remains of a fiberglass pod at a home in Sonoma County, California, that was burned during the Nuns Fire in the fall of 2017.
Small onsite systems may also have components placed above ground. This is the remains of a fiberglass pod at a home in Sonoma County, California, that was burned during the Nuns Fire in the fall of 2017.

The fire indirectly caused another issue for onsite systems. With no vegetation to hold the soil, there were mudslides when rains came to the mountains. Some systems were covered with 2 or 3 feet of mud. Long’s crews dug many out, but they had to wait until the mud dried.

Brush fires like the one in 2011 are common in Arizona, Long says. It was very windy that year, as California is now.

“People literally fled home without their shoes. That’s how fast the fire came up and hit them,” she says. 

Size is no advantage

Large onsite systems may be at greater risk because so many more components are placed above ground.

Large plastic treatment pods and connections melt, and it doesn’t have to be from direct exposure to flame, says Peter Lescure, principal civil engineer at Lescure Engineers Inc. in Santa Rosa. At URJ Camp Newman, a youth camp in Sonoma, radiant heat from nearby flames did damage.

Living in California has taught Lescure that hot air from a fire will cook oils and other chemical compounds out of pine and juniper trees. The result is like adding fuel to an engine. Trees burn like Roman candles.

Only one of the four Orenco Systems AX-Max pods at URJ Camp Newman survived the fire, and in a show of how fickle fire can be, the control panel and backup generator for the system came through without so much as a blister.

When control panels and treatment pods are damaged, there isn’t any rehabilitation, Lescure says. It’s a new construction project. He designed the Camp Newman system and is now involved in rehabilitating it.

“They lost most of the buildings, so we have all these open sewer lines sitting there, leading to a lift station with an open top, next to a creek,” he says. That must be dealt with before the fall rains start, which could be as early as mid-October, or as late as mid-December.

There is also no way to protect a system from fire, he says, and that’s why fires cause so much damage. 

This AX-Max pod at URJ Camp Newman in Sonoma County, California, did not escape the fire. The fire got inside, and this was the result.
This AX-Max pod at URJ Camp Newman in Sonoma County, California, did not escape the fire. The fire got inside, and this was the result.

When BDK Septic Service is called to a fire-damaged property, they have a process. They check the septic tank to make sure there is no damage and effluent remains at the proper level. They load-test a system by flushing 150 gallons of water through the drainfield pipes. A Kyre camera and Goldak Triad 2310 locator allow them to inspect the underground components.

More than 5,000 homes were destroyed in Santa Rosa, most of them expensive homes in the hills around the city, Karnes says. In some cases, almost a year later, people are still dealing with insurance companies. Some people haven’t decided what they want to do with their properties. Once insurance is settled and property owners know what they want to do, they need inspections and permits to rebuild.

“We’re taking orders into October to do this,” Karnes says. “We’ll still be dealing next year with the aftermath of last year’s fire.”

The fires in Santa Rosa took their toll, but some customers of BDK Septic Service paid a double price. With the insurance money from their Santa Rosa losses, some people moved north to Redding, California. They found new houses and bought new furniture. On July 23, the Carr Fire ignited and burned into Redding.

“So they lost two homes in one year,” Karnes says. And it’s not easy for people to return to Santa Rosa, he says. The area’s high housing prices lock them out or limit their choices.

The good news, though, is as of Sept. 4, 2018, the state of California said the Carr Fire was finally 100 percent contained.



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