As firefighters continued to mop up and assess damage Friday morning after a massive explosion and fire at the Chevron El Segundo Refinery that burned for more than nine hours, concerns mounted about the area’s supply of jet fuel.
No injuries have been reported as a result of the fire at the oil processing plant, which was reported just after 9:30 p.m. Thursday.
Witnesses who live in the area reported hearing a blast, then seeing a wall of flames upon going outside. The fire could be seen from several miles away.
Video from the location showed orange flames leaping toward the night sky.
The last of the visible flames were extinguished about 7:15 a.m. Friday, according to Fox 11 helicopter coverage.
No evacuation orders were issued. A shelter-in-place order was issued for the nearby Manhattan Beach’s Tree Section Neighborhood due to the fire and was lifted after 2 a.m. Friday.
The fire was confined to a jet fuel production unit at the refiner, sources told Reuters.
“The fire broke out in the refinery’s Isomax 7 unit, which converts mid-distillate fuel oil into jet fuel, two sources told the news agency. “The reformer and the fluid catalytic cracker were shut, losing more than 100,000-barrels per day gasoline output, a trader said, citing Wood Mackenzie.”
The refinery is the “largest producing oil refinery on the West Coast, processing more than 276,000 barrels of crude per day,” according to the plant’s website.
According to Reuters, the refinery is California’s second-largest, and Chevron’s second-largest in the U.S., supplying a fifth of all motor vehicle fuels and 40% of the jet fuel used in the isolated southern California market.
California’s largest refinery is Marathon Oil Corp.’s Los Angeles Refinery in nearby Carson.
“All refinery personnel and contractors have been accounted for and there are no injuries,” Allison Cook, a Chevron spokeswoman, said in a statement.
“No evacuation orders for area residents have been put in place by emergency response agencies monitoring the incident, and no exceedances have been detected by the facilities fence line monitoring system,” according to Chevron.
Gov. Gavin Newsom “has been briefed on the incident,” according to a statement from his office, which “is coordinating in real time with local and state agencies to protect the surrounding community and ensure public safety.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on social media that she has been briefed on the fire and spoken with Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, whose Second District includes El Segundo.
The Los Angeles Fire Department “stands at the ready to assist with any mutual aid request,” Bass wrote, adding “there is no known impact to” Los Angeles International Airport.
Fire crews from the refinery’s on-site fire department and the El Segundo Fire Department, which train together for such emergencies, fought the blaze by shooting streams of water at it.
Concern about air quality was on the minds of several residents who gathered a block or so from the refinery to watch the fire, but officials said monitoring showed the air is safe to breathe.
Traffic was diverted away from the scene while road closures were put in place along nearby streets such as Rosecrans Avenue from Vista Del Mar to Pacific Coast Highway and along PCH from Rosecrans to El Segundo Boulevard.
The cause of the fire was under investigation.