Kevin Schula came home Thursday afternoon to a distinctive smell.
“When you try to light your stove and it doesn’t light, and it’s been going for ten seconds — that’s exactly what it smelled like,” Schula said.
Hours before, homeowners in the East Bakersfield neighborhood had been visited by a man who gave them a flier.
“Warning,” it said.
“Major gas leak in your area.”
“I actually went in and closed the windows,” local resident Bobbi Scales said.
Multiple organizations confirmed in statements to Bakersfield TV station KGET that a pair of idle oil wells — wells that aren’t in use but haven’t been sealed — were found with what the California Department of Conservation called “pinhole-sized leaks.”
Get the full story: Read more.