{"id":818240,"date":"2026-05-24T04:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T04:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818240\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T04:04:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T04:04:34","slug":"garden-grove-chemical-crisis-newsom-declares-emergency-as-thousands-flee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818240\/","title":{"rendered":"Garden Grove chemical crisis: Newsom declares emergency as thousands flee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fire officials spent Saturday in an increasingly dire race against the clock at Garden Grove\u2019s <\/a>GKN Aerospace, with temperatures in a compromised tank of toxic chemicals creeping perilously upward and evacuated residents increasingly worried for their homes and health.<\/p>\n

By Saturday morning, it was clear that conditions had worsened inside the failing tank holding an estimated 7,000 liquid gallons of methyl methacrylate, <\/a>or MMA, making the possibility of a massive explosion or toxic chemical leak at the aircraft and spacecraft manufacturer significantly more likely.<\/p>\n

Temperatures inside the tank reached 90 degrees by 10 a.m. Saturday, up from 77 degrees a day earlier, Craig Covey, Orange County Fire Authority division chief, said during a morning news conference.<\/p>\n

An internal sprinkler system supplemented by unmanned ground sprinklers helped stabilize temperatures around 90 degrees, division chief and hazardous materials program manager Nick Freeman said.<\/p>\n

Despite firefighters\u2019 round-the-clock efforts, by Saturday afternoon, Freeman said the two most likely outcomes remained dire ones: a massive explosion of the pressurized tank, or a rupture that releases thousands of gallons of a highly toxic chemical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all of our folks, and you name it, working on what our other options could be,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n

The tank\u2019s gauge only detects temperatures up to 100 degrees. Officials haven\u2019t disclosed what temperature they believe would indicate an imminent explosion.<\/p>\n

By Saturday afternoon, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the industrial accident, which has displaced 40,000 people from an evacuation zone that extends roughly a mile in all directions from the aerospace facility and includes parts of Garden Grove, Cypress, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park and Westminster.<\/p>\n

The California Governor\u2019s Office of Emergency Services has been mobilized since Friday, Newsom wrote on social media, and state agencies are supporting impacted communities to \u201cprotect public safety, and assist local officials as response efforts continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease continue to follow guidance from emergency officials,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Evacuees gathered at four shelters in Fountain Valley, La Palma, Huntington Beach and Anaheim anxiously awaited updates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe left our homes, our memories, everything,\u201d said Nathalie, 45, an Anaheim resident who had spent the night at an American Red Cross-run shelter in Fountain Valley with her 16-year-old son, who has epilepsy, autism and cerebral palsy. \u201cIs it going to explode? And what will be the consequences for us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Based in the United Kingdom, GKN Aerospace manufactures landing gears, jet engines and other materials for commercial and military aircraft.<\/p>\n

In January 2025, the company settled with the South Coast Air Quality Management District for $909,935.95 over violations of permit requirements, record-keeping requirements, and nitrogen oxide emissions, according to a report posted on AQMD\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

GKN did not immediately respond to questions about the settlement on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Firefighters have determined that the emergency was triggered by a failure of the tank\u2019s internal cooling system on Thursday. Late Friday, firefighters had been relying on drone-based thermometers to estimate the temperature inside the failing tank, which gave a reading of 61 degrees, with 50 degrees being the goal.<\/p>\n

But by Saturday, Covey said it became clear that the drone could only measure the temperature on the outside of the tank, not the inside. They made that discovery after a crew was sent in overnight and manually read the temperature gauge showing the failing tank\u2019s interior temperature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a call last night to go back on the offensive,\u201d Covey said. \u201cWe did put people in harm\u2019s way last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside the tank is an estimated 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, a durable, lightweight and transparent polymer that can be used in household goods or as a glass substitute.<\/p>\n

The polymer itself isn\u2019t toxic, but its liquid predecessor \u2014 a monomer, essentially a bunch of single molecules \u2014 is. If it gets into the air, it can harm people at high concentrations and through chronic exposure.<\/p>\n

As the temperature rises, the tank is at risk of falling into a chain reaction known as \u201cthermal runaway,\u201d in which the increase in temperature accelerates further heat release.<\/p>\n

Already, the excess heat in the tank has caused the MMA to harden and clog the failing tank\u2019s valves, rendering it impossible for crews to drain the dangerous chemical or add stabilizing agents, Freeman said.<\/p>\n

If the temperature of the tank exceeds a certain threshold, \u201cwe know the tank is going into thermal runaway, and we\u2019re going to pull everybody out of the area, make sure it\u2019s safe, and let the tank do what it\u2019s going to do,\u201d Covey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever seen videos of tank cars on a railroad track blowing up, and that fireball it puts out, and it blows half the tank car a half a mile down the train track, that\u2019s the incident potential we are dealing with if this suffers a catastrophic failure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another scenario that could result in significant environmental damage to waterways and the ocean is a massive leak, although such a leak would eliminate the possibility of a more dangerous explosion.<\/p>\n

From there, teams in hazardous material suits can go in and \u201cneutralize and mitigate the vapors that will be coming off of that,\u201d Covey said.<\/p>\n

Given the size of the evacuation area, \u201cwe\u2019re very confident that our evacuation zones mean that anybody outside of that area does not need any personal protective equipment,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n

Continuing to pour a deluge of cool water on the tank could allow the liquid chemical inside to cure at a slower rate \u2014 become a solid at a slower speed \u2014 and reducing the buildup of pressure inside the tank, Covey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike an ice cube that freezes from the outside in \u2014 this stuff cures, it heats up and cures from the outside in. While it\u2019s doing that process, it\u2019s building that pressure,\u201d Covey said.<\/p>\n

The tank has some capacity to contain pressure. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that that space can absorb a slower cure rate and not over-pressure and blow up,\u201d Covey said.<\/p>\n

In other words, continuing to cool the tank could slow the chemical reaction in a way that avoids an explosion.<\/p>\n

Elias Picazo, assistant professor of chemistry at USC, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the best-case scenarios is to let the [MMA] monomers react, but you do it in a controlled way,\u201d Picazo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe if it\u2019s slow enough, you can form solid within the tank and cause the monomers, the reactive monomers, to stay apart from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they don\u2019t come into contact, therefore they cannot react,\u201d Picazo said. \u201cYou need contact for reactivity, and you can\u2019t have contact if you have solid state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firefighters said they\u2019re hopeful they can still avoid an explosion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re optimistic,\u201d Covey said. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing people in from all over the country, talking to people all over the place, trying to come up with additional options.<\/p>\n

\u201cLetting this thing just fail and blow up is unacceptable to us,\u201d Covey said.<\/p>\n

Times staff writers Andrew Turner, Suhauna Hussain, Hailey Branson Potts, Salvador Hernandez and correspondent Eric Licas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire officials spent Saturday in an increasingly dire race against the clock at Garden Grove\u2019s GKN Aerospace, with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":818241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[20680,1582,276,331277,336691,336264,3534,12768,54304,111475,336266,2961,224,5337,560,3546,5395,9071,15475,25467],"class_list":["post-818240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anaheim","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-craig-covey","tag-degree-celsius","tag-elias-picazo","tag-emergency","tag-firefighter","tag-freeman","tag-garden-grove","tag-gkn-aerospace","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-mma","tag-people","tag-saturday","tag-tank","tag-temperature","tag-thousand"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116627575070014738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}