. it was the biggest oil spill in american history. and it happened right here in california 100 years ago. plus how a bay area company helped cap this manmade disaster in the middle east. and we will bring you the mystery of the oil covered birds off the san mateo coast. all straight ahead on a "second look." hello everyone i'm frank somerville. as oil continues to spew from that oil in the gulf of mexico some are beginning to wonder if that will be the worst oil spill in history. right now that distinction belongs to a disaster that

happened here in california back in 1910. it was an oil well that blew in kern county in what would come to be known as the lake view gusher. in the year and a half before it was stopped, that gusher would dump 900 million-gallons of oil into the landscape around it. last month, reporter casey wyan visited the site of the lake view gusher and recounted the story. >> reporter: 100 years ago this was the site of what remains to this day the largest oil spill in u.s. history. we are in kern county, california, the heart of the state's oil country. in march of 1910 the oil was still in its infancies. they were drilling on this site and this they reached a depth of more than 2200 feet they hit what would come to be known as the lake view gusher. >> the well blew out and this crater you see around here. >> reporter: bruce helm's family has been in the oil

industry for three decades. >> no blow-out preventers or nothing. when it came you had to run for your life. record are here at the museum there is a replica of the wooden oil derrick they used a decade ago. this is more than 100 feet high. but the oil was spewing more than 200 feet into the air. in fact, locals say on a calm day you could see black columns of oil mist one-half mile in the sky. back on the ground, you can still see remnants of the lake view gusher today. the oil turned the soil here basically into asphalt. at its peak, the lake view gusher spewed out 100,000- barrels of oil per day. that's more than five times the rate of the current gulf oil disaster. although the lake view gusher eventually slowed down, it lasted for a year and a half. >> it happened 100 years ago. and we're all still here, we are living and we are

breathing, still driving automobiles. driving on the biggest oil slick in the world. that highway you drove on is a bigger oil slick than what's down there in louisiana. >> back then oil fill drilling and safety technology was rudiment are you at best. workers scrambled to try to contain the gusher. you can still see the boards that they used, the sandbags stuck in the oil. they even used sage brush to build this 20-foot high berm to try to contain the oil but nothing worked. by the time the lake view gusher died out 544 days later it had spilled more than 9 million-barrels of oil in this region. less than half of that was actually recovered. so much oil people were actually floating in boats on oil. this land isn't used for anything except as a state monument and a reminder of out of control oil. the area where the lake view gusher erupted 100 years ago is still a big oil

producing area. in february of 2008 ktvu's lloyd lacuesta brought us this look at the oil fields around it. aft taft. >> reporter: there are parts of kern county where pump jacks taking oil out of the land dot the landscape as far as the eye can see. and even in downtown bakersfield there are pumps sucking out crude from depths greater than the height of nearby office high-rise buildings. oil is a lifeblood here. 550,000-barrels filled every day. 68% of california's total oil production. the new hollywood movie "there will be blood" tells the story of the beginnings of kern county's oil industry in the 1800s. >> there is a whole ocean of oil under our feet. >> more than 100 years later the oil no longer gushes out, but there is still black gold to be found. >> you know never where you are

going to get oil until you see it come out. >> fred holmes is a third generation independent oil producer. he has 400 wells that bring forth 2,000-gallons a day. he started working in oil rigs when he was just 13-year-old. >> those are built our house. of course our business is run out of the house on the kitchen table. >> reporter: his family business is big business now. home is just the 22nd larges oil producer in the state. but he still considers himself a mom and pop oil company compared to the major oil companies such as chevron which is pumping 25,000-barrels of crude in kern county every day. the majors and the independence are both he reaping the benefits of an oil boom that has a barrel of crude in the 80 to $100 range. holmes says the high prices have enabled him to try and find more oil. >> when the oil prices are small or low, you know, we had to have pretty good returns now

to go after oil that's -- you know, we have passed over before. so we are back getting what you would call the hard stuff out of the oil field. we have got the food already and after the hard to get now. >> the hope is that rig 68 will result in 5,000-barrels a day which means it will take three years to pay off the investment. the well is expected to last 15 years before it goes dry. >> these are excellent times. this is the second big boom. >> reporter: oil workers are referred to as hands. there are 10,000 who make a living off oil in kern county. the higher oil price versus raised their wages to $25 to $30. >> it gives us work and that's a good thing. the prices at the gas pump aren't that great because of the boom. but we don't get a break there. >> reporter: pipelines carry oil from kern county to refineries in the bay area and la. there are 42-gallons in a

barrel of crude. after refining it makes about 19.5-gallons of gasoline. but when it gets back to the oil town of taft the pump prices are still more than $3 a gallon. taft was founded when the oil began gushing. it is a town of 6,000 but it has not experienced the spill- over from the oil boom. experts say in just 35-40 years, this oil field will go dry. and the oil boom will go south. still to come on a "second look" it was an environmental nightmare and intentionally set. find out how a bay area company helped stop these oil fires in kuwait. and a bit later the mystery of the oily birds off the san mateo coast.

. in the final days of the first gulf war iraqi soldiers deliberately lit hundreds of oil and natural gas fires. the environmental toll was devastating. a bay area company and a team of local firefighters were among a massive force sent to the area with the dangerous job of putting out those fires. in january of 2000, ktvu's bob mckenzie recounted their story. >> reporter: it was one of the great environmental outrages of the 20th century. husseih of iraq losing the war he started by innovating kuwait took a monumental revenge. they left 650 oil wells torched and burning, blackening the sky for hundreds of miles.

predictions were that kuwait would burn for years. the fires in kuwait called forth the biggest firefighting effort in history. 8,000 pieces of heavy equipment, 125,000-tons of materials and gear left the u.s. on their way to kuwait. the becktal group, a san francisco based company took on the job of putting out the fire. 10,000 people from 43 countries would join this firefighting army. the commanding general, you might say, was terrance farly, the president of becktal construction at that time. he had built big projects all over the world but he wasn't prepared for what he found in kuwait. >> the magnitude of the damage in the oil field was much greater than anybody ever envisioned. you knew it, but you couldn't begin to envision the degree. >> reporter: the firefighters had fought big fires before but no one had ever confronted so

many a place so hot, so choked with smoke and gases, the treacherous desert winds. >> you couldn't get near the fire because as you would approach it, the wind would shift and blow the flames right at you. >> reporter: all to petroleum fires are ferocious but each is ferocious in its own way. the high sleeking plumes shoot straight to the sky burning at temperatures near 2,000- degrees. at such temperature steel melts and living creatures disappear. but the ones called coke fires are worse, creating rolling filthy clouds of smoke and huge masses of unburned petroleum called coke piles that can explode, spewing red hot embers and poisonous fumes. >> you should be going to bg108. >> reporter: the fire crews tried to stay up wind but a shift of wind could fly missiles in any direction and easily peers a firefighters's jacket and his skin. all of this had to be done in

what amounted to battlefield conditions. >> not around here much longer. >> reporter: as if the fires weren't enough there were land mines and boob bytraps everywhere. 100 british sapers crawled through the sand to find and disable the bombs so the firefighting arm could move forward. sadam had bought mines and anti personnel devices from all over the globe. >> it was the nasty stuff, these things that pop up when you put foot pressure on them and take you off at the kneecaps. >> reporter: and putting out the fires was only half the problem. once a fire was out the teams then confronted an out of control oil gusher. >> the problem was that the well itself had been damaged. so there was no way to shut it off. so if you put the fire out, now you either had gas or you had oil still spewing into the environment into your face. >> why don't the crews wear goggles? because it is easier to wipe your eyes than to wipe goggles. a run-away gusher could be capped but never easily. this particular operation took

place in august, in 120-degree heat. the cost in money of this epic battle would finally total out at around $2 million. saddam's revenge fire succeeded in wiping out three percent of kuwait's oil reserves. but also a cost in lives. two journalists and three oil fieldworkers were killed when their vehicles were cut off by fire and incinerated. a sixth man died when he stepped on a land mine. a seventh, a welder, was run over by a bulldozer. seven men were burned, five seriously. walker, the film maker who took the pictures we see, obviously took some chances. >> they all deserve credit. they were men and women. and they all did a heck of a job. the kuwaiti's did a he can had of a job. an awful lot of heroes and harrow inns in this. >> but fires expected to burn for years were out in eight months thanks to farley and his

firefighting army. when you look back at occasions in the 20th century had the good guys won, the fires of kuwait will surely be on the list. >> when we come back a mystery that took years to solve. why did oil covered birds keep showing up on the san mateo coast. >> last year you saw major news from overnight. >> right now police are searching for a gunman who served fire on officers. late breaking details. >> in the deadly dog malling case. ktvu spoke to the grandfather if a jail house interview. a pickup truck was flipped over to its roof. >> this is ktvu, channel 2 news in the morning.

. >> in 1998 wildlife organizations and the coastguard had a mystery on their hands. birds were showing up covered in oil and no one knew where the oil was coming from. >> reporter: at first glance today drake's bay in the point reyes national sea shore was as glorious as ever. walk on the beach oil glob you'lls were scattered across the sand by whom, from where? no one seems to know. >> they had a helicopter overflight yesterday. they cannot see any visual oil. the seas were very nasty yesterday. >> reporter: and the seas were nasty today, too. surf so dangerous that all

searches for oiled birds were called off today. but since friday, when park rangers first noticed the oil here, fish and game officials have captured 48 oiled birds, most are being treated at the international bird rescue center in berkeley. >> this bird is pretty heavily oiled right in here. >> reporter: but 22 have died. among the casualties, some endangered species such as a the snowy plover. on the shock hike today we discovered several dead bird. we don't know if the oil did this. >> by california oil spill standards, this point reyes incident is a relatively minor one. casualty visitors to point reyes probably wouldn't notice any oil. still the incident is a troubling one. especially troubling because it is the second incident here in just the past two months. similar oil globules last november killed hundreds of

birds. >> northern formars and loons and greebs and gulls. >> reporter: as cleanup crews scoured the beaches other crews collected samples and will analyze them in labs, compare them to samples taken from ships that have recently passed by. >> we can do a fingerprinting based on oil samples to see if they matchup. obviously they matchup, we will pursue penalties and action against the responsible party. >> reporter: the november spill was also a mystery. chemical tests linked the oil to a slick near the fairlon islands but no test linked the oil to any one ship. >> it was probably over 300 vessels that could be subject, but to sample all 300 vessels would take a cadre of hundreds of people. >> reporter: the oil not only threatens animals it could shut down the oyster company. the november spill did. no oil actually got into the

oyster beds in november and none has this time either. but just the possibility could force the health department once again to shut johnsons down. >> we've never had this kind of frequency and succession of spills ever. >> reporter: rangers used alter rain vehicles today to hunt for birds and found dozens. is far, all of the oiled birds have been common seabirds. but there are also endangered birds here that live closer to shore. pelicans and snowy plovers that might peck at oil still on the beach. by tonight, most of the tar balls have been removed the source unknown, more still could wash up. >> three years later the same thing happened again and again investigators were scratching their heads wondering where the oil was coming from. here is our report from december 2001 and ktvu's victim jim vargas. >> the oily birds started

washing ashore the day after thanksgiving. of 300 birds 125 have died. most of them are common meers which live at sea except during breeding season in the spring. the injured birds are being treated at the oiled wildlife care rescue center in cordelia. >> question had some birds that have actually come in to shore dead. others birds that based on their exams and their condition when we have had them come in life we have decided to euthanize them. >> reporter: those is that stand a to live are being force fed and given time to recover from the cold for a few days. then volunteers are cleaning them with mild dishwashing soap and soft water before they are left to re condition their feathers in warming pens and ponds. >> the main problem is hypothermia because they can't control their body temperature anymore. so we have to keep the rooms warm and raise their temperatures. if they are hype they wering they can't even have food they will stop vomiting. >> reporter: how the birds got covered in oil is a mystery. it could have come from a slick

off the san mateo surf. heavy surf broke up the slick yesterday. the coastguard which is investigating the incident isn't jumping to any conclusions since the birds have been found in a much larger area stretching to the bay. >> we have taken a sample from the spill on saturday and try to match it or fingerprint it against the oil taken from the birds. >> reporter: the second goal is to find the source of the oil. since the slick was 15 miles off the coast in shipping lanes, large cargo vessels become the primary suspects. >> when we come back on a "second look," the mystery of the oily birds is solved.

. for three and a half years the coastguard tried to solve a mystery. starting in 1998, oily birds were showing up periodically offer the san mateo county coast. but no one seemed to know where the oil was coming from. well, finally the mystery was solved. the oil came from the wreck of the ss jacob luckinbock laying some 180 feet below the water

off the san mateo coast. it was a freighter and gone down in july of 1953 after colliding with another ship in heavy fog. and it had apparently been leaking oil since the early 70s. but it wasn't until 2002 that the coastguard was able to use the fingerprint of its oil to identify it as the source of the oil that was killing seabirds. ktvu's brian banmiller first brought us this report in february of 2002. >> it's very possible this thing has been leaking longer than ten years. we don't know how far back because that's as far back as our current database of information goeson tuesday a remote controlled operated camera was lowered down to survey the wreckage of the steamship. oil samples show the ss luckinbock was a source for a number of spills including one in 1997, '98 when tar balls washed up in marin county, killing at prevention and respo

he says the oil that gets near to or on the shore is a huge problem because of all of the wildlife there. but that the oil still in the ship may be another story. it's more than two miles down in 32 degrees fahrenheit water. >> the oil is going to be

extremely viscous almost so sid. not very mow bail or oozing out across the ocean bottom. >> reporter: oil experts say if the hull section stayed intact the oil might be contained indefinitely. oil spill specials tid martin says any leaks would be very slow to surface. >> just glops would come to the surface rather than a large amount. >> reporter: the real experts say to force obsolete ships into retirement. >> there needs to be regulations where this needs to stop. we are only hearing about this one because it is really big. it happens all the time and on a smaller scale. it doesn't take that much oil to kill a lot of animals and affect the environment. >> that's it for this week's "second look." i'm frank somerville. we will see you again next week.