Nick Snow
OGJ Washington Editor
WASHINGTON, DC, Nov. 5 -- The US Chemical Safety Board sent a six-member team to investigate an explosion and fire at Silver Eagle Refining Inc.’s Woods Cross, Utah, refinery. The accident is the second at the plant to be investigated by the federal agency this year.
Local fire investigators and the company confirmed that there was an explosion and fire on Nov. 4 at about 9:13 a.m. MST in the plant’s diesel unit. No one was injured and the fire was quickly contained.
“There was a line which had some product leak or spill onto the ground and into one of the furnaces, where it exploded,” Jeff Bassett, deputy fire chief of the South Davis Metro Fire Agency, told OGJ in a telephone interview. “We had a very large boom with a lot of smoke. It sent a very large percussion through the local area. The fire itself was small and extinguished within 20 min. Right now, we’re trying to determine what caused the explosion.”
The blast also briefly knocked out power to two other refineries nearby which have since resumed operations, Bassett said, adding, “There is a neighborhood east of the plant where some homes have been damaged. One house has been condemned. Several others had garage doors and front doors blown out.”
Silver Eagle said in a written statement that officials from the refinery contacted about 120 residents who live nearby and that about a dozen of them reported minor damages to their homes and property. The company said it has hired local disaster cleanup and restoration company Belfor to work with residents and has made arranges for some who had structural or security issues to stay at a nearby hotel.
“We are truly sorry this has occurred,” Silver Eagle Pres. Dave McSwain said. “We recognize this has been a trauma to many people and we are trying to reduce the impact of this accident as much as possible.”
CSB already is investigating a Jan. 12 fire in an atmospheric storage tank that seriously burned two employees and two contract workers at the same refinery. Investigations supervisor Donald Holmstrom is leading the team which is examining the latest accident, the federal agency said. Another CSB team from its western regional office in Denver is investigating an Oct. 23 fire at Tesoro Corp.’s Salt Lake City refinery.
Contact Nick Snow at nicks@pennwell.com.
