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Now Apache Asphalt is scrambling to reschedule work that had to be canceled. Some rescheduling is causing other previously scheduled jobs to be postponed. “We’ve had to speak to other customers, and there seems to be a good understanding under these sorts of conditions. People have understood the problems that we have been faced with as far as doing the rescheduling.”

Despite the fact that the wildfires were a disaster, McClure says there is a flip side to the event. “Whenever there is a fire like that there’s damage to the asphalt. The asphalt gets burnt and has to be dug up, repaired, and redone. So there’s opportunity coming, but that might take a while,” he says. “We have to look at it in a positive light, although you feel for the people that lost their homes.” However, McClure says he doesn’t think a positive economic impact from the fires will happen for at least six months, due to the permitting process.

Because so much pavement was burnt, McClure sees additional work opportunities in this area. According to McClure there are degrees of burnt pavement that determine whether the asphalt needs an overlay or needs to be completely removed and redone. Those degrees depend on how long the flame was on the asphalt.

Fire blackens asphalt and makes it more brittle because it is burning up the oil in the asphalt. This effect on pavement is known as spalling, McClure says. “If it’s spalled away we may be able to take it and scrape it down to a solid portion of the pavement, asphalt tack it with an asphalt tar, and then skin patch it or put an overlay on it.”

However, if fire has burned the pavement for an extended period of time it can burn a hole into the pavement and cause damage most or all the way through. In this case, the pavement would need to be completely removed and repaired, McClure says. “If you overlay it, it could very well just kind of be crumbling underneath and you don’t really have a good support for your overlay,” he adds.