Drilling underway at leaking SoCal Gas plant near Porter Ranch; fire crews on standby

PORTER RANCH, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Potentially dangerous activity took place at the Aliso Canyon natural gas site as the Southern California Gas Company said it's conducting test drilling.

A Los Angeles County Fire Department strike team has been deployed to the site of the leaking well near Porter Ranch.

SoCal Gas said the drilling operation is moving into a sensitive area as they'll be drilling through rock. Out of an abundance of caution, the company said extra fire crews were brought in.

But some residents in the area said they're concerned.

"You know, we're in fire area too. We've had a drought, our area it known to have a lot of problems with fires. I can't even imagine drilling through rocks. That sounds frightening to me and there are a lot of homes that are right there at the base of this and people who are still coming and going," Susan Yoon of Granada Hills said.

Mike Mizrahi, spokesperson with SoCal Gas, said even though they believe the next phase of the drilling operation is safe, the company doesn't want to take any chances.

"So we have joined forces with the county fire department. We have other fire-safety personnel up on site and we're going to be monitoring this operation to insure safety of the workers and of the community," he explained.

"We're at a critical juncture and there are a lot of moving parts. There's over 150 operational personal up there working every day and today's operation they've asked for some additional firefighting personnel, about 20 extra personnel," Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Mark Savage said.

Despite the safety measures taken, some residents remain very nervous.

"It scares me for people who are right up in the area where this catastrophe is going on" Monty Preston of Porter Ranch said. "It is scary because you don't know what a spark an explosion could cause up here."