A major fire in a storage tank at a refinery in Garyville, Louisiana, roughly 40 miles west of New Orleans, has been contained, according to authorities.
St. John the Baptist Parish President Jaclyn Hotard, according to a statement released by the parish, withdrew the mandatory evacuation order that had been in effect for a two-mile radius around the institution since Friday morning.
The statement claimed the incident was contained to an area between two tanks on the refinery’s site and was under control. Both tanks are severely damaged at this point.
According to the statement, an investigation will be launched to find out what went wrong.
According to Marathon Petroleum Corporation, the blaze is contained within the refinery’s site, and one firefighter is being checked out for heat exhaustion.
Marathon’s human resources manager, Justin Lawrence, said at a press conference on Friday that the “tank itself is not on fire,” adding that the blaze was confined to the tank’s exterior.
Lawrence explained that the fuel in the tank was naphtha, a partially refined substance used to produce petrol. “It’s not the tank itself that’s on fire—it’s the product around it.”
For the second time, Lawrence emphasised that “the fire is not in the tank, it is around the perimeter where the naphtha is pooling.”
At first, the fire “was kind of a lazy flame,” as Lawrence put it, and the team used foam to keep the smoke and flames under control. The fire “did reignite and there have been spots where it is harder to control as it picks up and this morning as the day gets hotter,” the report said.
The office of emergency management, the fire department, and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality have all been contacted out to by AWN for comment.
“As always, our top priority is to ensure the safety of our employees and contractors, neighbours within the surrounding community, first responders, and the environment,” Marathon added. To find out what triggered the leak, “an investigation will be conducted.”
Time is of the essence now in getting the “fire put out as quickly as possible,” as Lawrence put it.
The majority of the fire has been put out, but firefighters are still doing fire suppression actions to deal with any flare-ups, according to a report released by St. John the Baptist Parish on Friday night. From time to time, smoke may be visible outside the building. Firefighters will keep putting out flames until they’re sure there’s no danger of another blaze starting.
