Fuel tanks explosion details are unclear
‘It’s far too early to know’ what triggered the blasts, fire officials announce
Search warrants were served Wednesday on the owner of the East Bay fuel facility that blew up a day before as a host of government agencies began probing what caused the fire that closed Interstate 80 and prompted nearby residents to huddle inside their homes.
The Contra Costa Fire Protection District’s investigative unit led the review starting Wednesday, said spokesperson Steve Hill at a news conference Wednesday morning, and a flurry of other state and local investigators joined on.
“It’s far too early to know,” Hill said as to the cause of the fire at the Crockett oil storage facility, adding, “We always prepare for the unexpected. But I’d be hard-pressed to say we expected this yesterday.”
Hill confirmed that Con Fire investigative units, joined by officials with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, the county’s health services and hazardous-materials departments, California Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, had served warrants on NuStar Energy just before noon Wednesday.
“One should make no assumptions about the character of NuStar,” Hill said. “It’s a common practice for big investigations like this one with multiple moving parts. NuStar has been nothing but cooperative. It’s very early on in what’s going to be accomplished. Not only is the incident complex, but there are also quite a few agencies involved.”
By about noon Wednesday, officials on the scene of NuStar Energy facility in Crockett had evaluated all nearby tanks and ensured their structural integrity, Hill said at a later briefing.
“Unfortunately, we’re not as far along as we would’ve liked operationally,” Hill said. “We found damaged infrastructure, pipes and flanges damaged by fire. That slowed down our ability to relieve pressure in adjacent tanks by venting them into the atmosphere.”
Hill said firefighters’ inability to determine dilution levels of other tanks’ materials meant fire suppression crews remained on standby out of caution.
The fire broke out shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday and ignited two 126,000-gallon ethanol tanks that were “more or less completely destroyed,” Hill said. Flames then spread to nearby vegetation, causing a massive fireball visible from the highway and clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky.
Firefighters battled the flames for hours, using a combination of foam and water to stop the blaze from spreading. Wednesday’s cleanup involved surrounding what’s left of the tanks with foam-blanketed containment pods to prevent flare-ups, Hill said.
State agency Cal/OSHA also sent inspectors to the site Wednesday, a spokesperson said, and plans to evaluate any possible workplace safety violations at the facility.
The agency issued an “order to preserve” on the two tanks and pipes involved in the fire.
Two other energy facilities in the area reported flaring earlier Tuesday after a magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck Monday night near Pleasant Hill.
It is not clear whether the quake played any role in the NuStar facility explosions.
Although the immediate threat has passed, all NuStar operations have closed down pending the investigation. Fire suppression crews will remain at the facility Wednesday out of an “abundance of caution,” Hill said.
No major injuries were reported; crews rescued one worker who was initially trapped at the facility, according to a spokesman for Cal/OSHA. One firefighter was treated and released overnight for minor injuries, Hill said.
Witnesses said the sound of the explosions reverberated for miles.
As smoke unfurled, authorities shut down I-80 and Cummings Skyway, San Pablo Road and other roadways leading to the NuStar site.
Remain-in-place alerts were issued for around 12,000 residents in the Crockett and Rodeo areas out of concern for possible air contaminants. County health officials mainly worried that the smoke would create unhealthful levels of particulates in the air, said Randy Sawyer, chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer for Contra Costa County.
Initial testing Tuesday night showed an unusually high concentration of particulates, Sawyer said. But by the time the county issued an all-clear late that night, officials were confident that the air quality was safe.
“The smoke itself is the biggest concern with shortterm, acute exposure,” Sawyer said. “We’re not expecting any long-term impacts from the smoke with this fire.”
Still, all John Swett Unified School District schools were closed Wednesday in the Rodeo and Crockett area, and classes were canceled at CCCOE Golden Gate Community School in Rodeo.
Located south of Vallejo, the Crockett facility is one of 74 operated by the publicly traded company NuStar Energy LP. The company is based in San Antonio and focuses on storing and distributing both crude oil and refined products.
All lanes of the highway eventually were reopened Tuesday night after traffic was snarled for hours.
In comments Wenesday, Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia told this news organization that officials would consider revising the county’s industrial safety ordinance, adopted about two decades ago, which covered petroleum refineries and chemical plants.
Currently, the ordinance covers Air Products within the Shell and Tesoro refineries, the Phillips 66 Rodeo Refinery, the Air LiquideRodeo Hydrogen Plant, the Shell Oil Martinez Refinery and Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery, according to a county website. In the city of Richmond, an almost identical safety ordinance covers the Chevron Richmond refinery and Chemtrade Richmond Works.
However, the county’s ordinance does not cover NuStar or other sites where petroleum products and other chemicals are stored. Gioia and fellow county Supervisor Federal Glover, who chair the committee that covers the ordinance, plan to bring it up at an upcoming supervisors meeting.