Explosion and Fire Reported at San Antonio Refinery
An explosion occurred at a refinery in San Antonio earlier today, according to the city’s fire department and news reports. Firefighters battled a fire that began after an explosion this afternoon at the AGE Refinery. Local news station WOAI reports that “the San Antonio Fire Department has confirmed a type of diesel jet fuel is burning. Crews have been using an extinguisher system at the refinery to help put out the fire.” The station says that the fire “appeared to be out as of 1:15 pm, and that workers were evacuated from the building.”
UPDATE: StateImpact Texas spoke by phone with Deborah Foster, Public Information Officer with the San Antonio Fire Department. She says that “they had a large explosion that was called into dispatch [at the fire department] about 25 minutes ago. ” Foster says firefighters knocked down the fire fairly quickly, and that now “we have everything under control.” Right now firefighters at the refinery are continuing to spray water on the tanks “to make sure they’re cool,” she says, “but the fire is knocked down and there were no injuries.
Were any pollutants released during the explosion and fire? Foster says that they don’t know of any at this time. “We don’t know what caused it,” she says, “but we’ll investigate more once the fuel has burned off.”
StateImpact Texas has contacted NuStar Energy, which owns the refinery, and will report back once we have any information from them.
This isn’t the first time a fire and explosion have happened at the refinery, according to WOAI:
This is the second explosion and fire at the refinery in less than two years. Back in May of 2010, a truck driver suffered severe burns after a truck being loaded with fuel exploded at the refinery, setting off a chain reaction of smaller explosions.
WOAI has a slideshow of the fire.
http://youtu.be/JgsJC2rWDhY
