Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Westley, CA

Westley is a small unincorporated census-designated place in western Stanislaus County, at the base of the Diablo Range near Ingram Creek, and part of the Modesto Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Westley had a population of 575 at the 2020 census, down from 747 at the 2000 census, and with nearby Crows Landing it remains a tiny farming community largely bypassed by the growth that turned Patterson and Newman into Bay Area bedroom communities.

Westley's 575 residents live in just 142 households that average a little over four people each, and unusually for California, most homes are rented rather than owned — 111 of the 142 households were renters in 2020.

Westley is one of the youngest communities in California: the 2020 census put its median age at just 24.3 years, with nearly 43% of residents under the age of 18.

About 94% of Westley's residents are Hispanic or Latino, and the community's life revolves around the surrounding west-side Stanislaus County farmland.

Westley was the site of the notorious Oxford tire pile, where roughly six million waste tires were dumped from the 1950s onward, forming the largest single collection of scrap tires on the West Coast; photographer Edward Burtynsky made the piles famous in his 'Oxford Tire Pile' images.

In 1997 a lightning strike ignited the Westley tire pile, and the fire burned for weeks before it could be extinguished, prompting the state to step in and dispose of the remaining tires.