Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
A massive explosion ripped through the largest oil refinery plant on the West Coast in the overnight hours, sending giant fireballs into the sky, visible from 20 miles away.
Fire crews on Tuesday night were dispatched to the Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s refinery in Carson, California, around 10:50 pm PST for reports of an explosion in a cooling tower.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department (LAFD) said the fire was contained hours later in the early hours on Wednesday morning.
#MarathonIC *UPDATE* Firefighters continue to make progress reducing the size of this fire, while providing protection to exposures. Residual pressure from remaining flammable gas is still contributing to limited fire activity. Engineers continue work to isolate fuel sources. pic.twitter.com/qVmZiA0sQW
— L.A. County Fire Department (@LACoFDPIO) February 26, 2020
Pricilla Reyes, a resident of Carson, told NBC Los Angeles that she heard multiple explosions at the plant before the fire broke out.
NBC Los Angeles’ photographer Kenny Holmes said the fire was visible from 22 miles away in Santa Monica.
LAFD said fire crews worked with refinery personnel to keep the flames in check via “fixed ground monitors” while working to depressurize the system.
LAFD said there was no need for a community evacuation considering the fire was contained.
The refinery is the largest on the West Coast, processing upwards of 363,000 barrels per day. The plant processes crude to make gasoline and diesel fuel, along with distillates, petroleum coke, anode-grade coke, chemical-grade propylene, fuel-grade coke, heavy fuel oil, and propane.
There was no word via Marathon or any other authorities if supply disruptions would be seen thanks to the incident.
Dramatic video of fireballs lighting up Carson’s sky was captured on Twitter.
Los Angeles Carson refinery is on fire@cnn pic.twitter.com/qFX6WCQHgB
— Brian Hayes (@brianhayesnyc) February 26, 2020
At some point all the flames from the Carson refinery were lit. pic.twitter.com/4sxtsMKvYx
— Juliet Alvarez Ixta (@JulietIxta) February 26, 2020
#BREAKING OVERNIGHT WHILE YOU SLEEPING: Authorities are responding to the Marathon Refinery in Carson, CA after an apparent explosion at the facility. @CitizenAppLA, @ABC7, @NBCLA, @CBSLA, @FOXLA + @BreakingNAgency pic.twitter.com/6EupeFrrfK
— Marcel Myrick (@AfterDarkMarcel) February 26, 2020
One Twitter handle said the incident forced LAFD to close northbound lanes of the 405 Freeway for approximately 30 minutes while crews battled the fire.
Hope everyone is okay. Scary fire erupted in Carson off the 405 ?? Cops are closing off the freeway SB pic.twitter.com/YMnM5idpuX
— Chynna (@ChynnaRaymundo) February 26, 2020
Helicopter video from NBC Los Angeles captures an impressive video of the incident.
WATCH LIVE: The 405 Freeway is completely shut down in Carson due to a large refinery fire, and a viewer said he felt an explosion as far away as Bellflower. https://t.co/89JCtADUZW pic.twitter.com/arhvQteTnJ
— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) February 26, 2020
The incident comes as WTI tumbles into a bear market, down -25% in the last 33 sessions, mostly due to a demand shock from China after the Covid-19 outbreak shut down two-thirds of its economy.
May be a kind of inside job, to accuse Iran of terrorism for example, and then justify military intervention in Syria-Iran… I wish I’m wrong…
Doubtfull why oil refanery when? Whey would choose civilian object there you can show on camera cruing women and children and mass media love what image.
Maybe someone wants the price of gas to go up?
Not likely. Not enough effort was made to make it look like an attack by Iran. No Iranian passports found lying miraculously in the ashes …
Yoy’re wring.
They said Iranian missiles couldn’t travel that far. There you have it.
LOL
Lack of brain trauma and headaches though.
nah mossad putting the blame on Iran of course. and the rednecks too dumb to even suspect that to be the case.
LOL…no they are not.
Houthis drone attack 2.0
Sabotage most likely. Been rather a lot of these these days.
So, will this be the cover story to excuse the gas price hike due to ansarallah’s take down of the west coast refinery in SA?
You could google oil price graph before cheering your wet dreams
Wet dream? Higher gas prices!?!?
Nah, that’s not a wet dream. Now, those captured Tornado pilots downed in Yemen, if they turn out to be *Western*, that would be a wet dream.
https://youtu.be/pCrEytFDWgY
“Higher gas prices!?!?” why don’t you google it ;) Striking that refinery was awesome, but it’s the coronavirus outbreak, duhh
Prices are dropping. Try to keep up.
This fire is a lot more interesting than the Libtard Primaries. Long may the inferno burn :)
+ spread.
Much advanced American techology in the worlds most green friendly state,run by neo-democrats.
Insurance job like the others ?.
LOL…damn, those Houthis have great rockets and drones. But aside from the fun, note the 25% drop in oil price which will seriously hurt Putz Putin’s Russian and Islamist Iranian economies. Oh, and also note the dollar has gone up in value compared to most other currencies.
first you short marathon oil on the stock exchange and then you hire mossad to cause a severe accident with loss of production as a consequence, then when the stock falls say 10% you buy them back making a nice profit. repeated over and over again and you’ll make a nice profit (mossad because it most likely would be a hymie behind the scheme)