Fire takes Mustang Energy Center offline
A fire that started in the morning involving equipment associated with a line that supplies natural gas to an Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. power plant in west Oklahoma City burned most of Thursday before finally flaming out.
Firefighters allowed businesses that had been evacuated for most of the day to return to normal
operations about 3 p.m., and the fire ended about 4:35 p.m. after exhausting its supply of fuel.
Emergency responders were called out shortly after 7 a.m. to the Mustang Energy Center, at 701 N Mustang Plant
Road, near NW 10 and N County Line.
They found an insulated tank containing heating oil, glycerol and possibly natural gas in flames when they arrived.
The tank, which holds about 7,000 gallons, supplied fuel to a heater on a ONEOK-owned line that supplies the energy center with natural gas its seven, quick-start turbines run on as they supply the region’s electric grid with power.
When the center is fully operational, it can generate a maximum of 462 megawatts of electricity in just 10 minutes’ time.
The gas the turbines use is required to be preheated to ensure the turbines’ efficient operations.
Firefighters found that the fire was contained to the tank, but opted to keep a safe distance from the fire while police shut down traffic in the area and authorities evacuated nearby businesses, including those south of the fire on Cooley Drive and the Lopez Foods on NW 4.
“What we had when we arrived was a 7,000-gallon tank that was beginning to catch on fire,” Fire Battalion Chief Benny Fulkerson said. “And we did not know what the product was in the tank, initially.”
Capt. David Macy, fire spokesman, said firefighters were monitoring the blaze by maintaining a “nonintervention mode,” adding they weren’t going anywhere soon. Fulkerson agreed. “We’re now just going to let this all burn out, and it could take from hours to days,” he said.
As for the Mustang Energy Center, OG&E spokesman Brian Alford said the utility put it into an outage status Thursday morning after the tank caught fire, and said the company would investigate the issue further with ONEOK before restoring the plant to service.
The plant’s idling was not expected to impact the delivery of electricity to customers, he said.
Stephanie Higgins, a ONEOK spokeswoman, said a cause for the fire hadn’t been determined on Thursday. Higgins also said ONEOK was monitoring the situation closely.
“We would like to thank the emergency responders for their quick response,” she said.