Crews Try Burning Oil as It Nears Shore

NEW ORLEANS — Crews ignited a small area of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday afternoon in a first attempt to burn some of the oil before it reaches shore.

Officials estimated that the spill, which has been slowly spreading in the Gulf since an oil rig exploded and sank last week, could hit the coast as early as Friday night.

The burn operation began at 4:45 p.m. Central time Wednesday. “They have lit off the burn,” Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley said.

The process consists of corralling concentrated parts of the spill in a 500 foot long fireproof boom, moving the oil to another location and burning it. While the process has been tested effectively on other spills, it is complicated by weather and concerns over ecological impact.

Officials said they would conduct several burns of thousands of gallons of oil, lasting approximately one hour for each burn. The results of the initial burn Wednesday afternoon will determine whether the response teams move forward with more.

Doug Suttles, the chief operating officer for British Petroleum, said that officials would know the result of the burn by Thursday. British Petroleum leased the oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, which caught fire and sank last week 50 miles offshore, releasing a slick of oil that has drifted to within 16 miles of the ecologically fragile Louisiana coastline. Last week, the Coast Guard called off the search for the 11 workers missing since the fire.

“We haven’t had a well release like this,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said at a news conference. “It’s premature to say this is catastrophic. I will say, this is very serious.”

Mr. Suttles said that BP has other plans to contain the oil. It has built a containment chamber, which will be taken to the site in another drilling rig. In addition, BP will begin work on a relief well to intersect the flow of oil that will be approximately a half-mile from the existing well.

Earlier on Wednesday, Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, described the spilled oil as very light, like “iced tea,” and only one-tenth of a millimeter thick, as thin as a human hair.

“We will be judged primarily on the strength of our response,” said Mr. Hayward, who is in southwest Louisiana.

A joint government and industry task force had been unable to stop crude oil from streaming out of a broken pipe attached to a well that the rig had been drilling nearly a mile below sea level. The leaks in the pipe, which were found on Saturday, are releasing about 42,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico southeast of Venice, La.

It was unclear exactly where along the Gulf Coast the oil might arrive first.

“If some of the weather conditions continue, the Delta area is at risk,” said Charlie Henry, scientific support coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Admiral Landry noted that the coastal area near the spill contains some 40 percent of the nation’s wetlands and is the spawning ground for countless fish and birds.

Controlled burns have been done and tested before, she said, and had been shown to be “effective in burning 50 to 95 percent of oil collected in a fire boom.” The main disadvantage, she said, was a “black plume” of smoke from the burn that would put soot and other particulate pollutants into the air.

Other short-term efforts to control the oil have so far been unsuccessful, and the political pressure has intensified.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said they were expanding the government’s investigation of the explosion that caused the oil rig disaster. The inquiry will have subpoena power and will look into possible criminal or civil violations by the operators of the drilling rig — Transocean, a Swiss company — and by related companies.

Administration officials also met Tuesday with top executives of BP, which is required by law to pay for the cleanup. Last fall, as the federal government was weighing tougher safety and environmental rules for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, BP objected, saying its voluntary programs were successful.

BP engineers have failed so far to activate a device known as a blowout preventer, a valve at the wellhead that is meant to stop oil flow in an emergency, and is the only short-term solution for capping the well.

Mr. Suttles, the chief operating officer for exploration and production at BP, defended the company’s efforts, and said the cleanup was costing $6 million a day. He said engineers had not given up on engaging the valve and were exploring other possibilities as well.

Mr. Suttles said that a plan to use a type of tent or dome to collect the oil was progressing, and was two to four weeks from being operational. On Tuesday, the company received permits to drill a relief well, which would be started half a mile from the current well site. Crews plan to drill toward the current well and then inject it with heavy fluids and concrete to seal it. That solution is experimental at this depth, however, and is months away.

Doug Helton, the incident operations coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s emergency response division, said winds would change Wednesday and start pushing the spill north and west toward the Mississippi Delta. “It is going to land eventually,” Mr. Helton said.

The prospect alarmed fisherman and ecologists along the Louisiana coast. Gov. Bobby Jindal requested that the Coast Guard set up protective booms around several wildlife refuges in the Delta.

Those delicate coastal rookeries and estuaries factor into the consideration for the surface burn. Such a burn would most likely ease the impact on wildlife.

The oceanic agency issued a guide to the burn that advised as follows:

“Based on our limited experience, birds and mammals are more capable of handling the risk of a local fire and temporary smoke plume than of handling the risk posed by a spreading oil slick. Birds flying in the plume can become disoriented, and could suffer toxic effects. This risk, however, is minimal when compared to oil coating and ingestion.”

A burn does not get rid of the oil entirely. It leaves waxy residue that can either be skimmed from the surface or sink to the bottom of the ocean.