Wildfires increasingly threaten oil and gas drill sites, compounding potential health risks, study says

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By Jason Pohl, UC Berkeley News. 

Excerpt: More than 100,000 oil and gas wells across the western U.S. are in areas burned by wildfires in recent decades, a new study has found, and some 3 million people live next to wells that in the future could be in the path of fires worsened by climate change. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, said their analysis, which was published last week in the journal One Earth, is the first to examine historical and projected wildfire threats on oil and gas facilities in the U.S. While the public health effects of scorched and damaged drill sites are unclear, researchers said the study is a necessary step toward understanding the potential compound hazards and could help inform policy about future drilling. ...In the past, fires in oil and gas fields not related to wildfires have caused blowouts, and leaks from gas storage tanks in Los Angeles have resulted in explosions that damaged buildings. Near Bakersfield, dozens of wells have been found to be leaking natural gas, some at explosive levels.... 

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