Petrochemical blaze contained, Texas officials expand air monitoring

HOUSTON: Firefighters late Tuesday contained a raging inferno at a Mitsui & Co petrochemical storage site outside of Houston that has been billowing acrid smoke for days as Texas officials and environmental groups raced to expand air monitoring.

The blaze at Mitsui unit Intercontinental Terminals Co in Deer Park, Texas, was reduced to four burning tanks from eight, a Harris County official said in a statement, after additional equipment and firefighters trained in handling tank fires arrived earlier in the day.

The fire began on Sunday when a leaking tank containing volatile naphtha, a fuel used in the production of gasoline, ignited and flames quickly spread to other tanks, ITC said. By Tuesday morning, the fire had ignited 12 of 15 tanks.

The tanks each hold up to 80,000 barrels, or 3.3 million gallons, of volatile liquid fuels, making the fire difficult to extinguish.

There were no employees or firefighters injured since the blaze began, an ITC spokesman said on Tuesday.

Thick, acrid smoke could be smelled miles away in Houston and was visible dozens of miles away. State and federal monitors said air quality was safe, but environmental groups disagreed and said they would conduct their own monitoring.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reported an increase in soot and other contaminants at ground levels around the site but said levels remained below those considered unhealthy. Monitoring by an Environmental Protection Agency aircraft also found ‘no significant detections,’ the EPA said.

“All the monitors are indicating no risk right now and they are looking at particulates,” said Ryan Sitton, a commissioner with the state’s energy regulator, adding there were no toxins released by the fire. Soot particles ‘are not at a level that causes risk to people,’he said. — Reuters