Refinery Oil Leak, Fire Kills 2 Men, Injures 1

Scalding-hot oil squirting from a leak at a Unocal refinery in Wilmington fueled a blaze that burned for more than four hours overnight, killing two workers and injuring a third.

The bodies of two men, burned beyond recognition, were removed from the rubble Friday morning at the facility at 1660 W. Anaheim St.

The fire started about 10:30 p.m. Thursday night, several minutes after the first fire companies arrived at the Unocal facility, responding to the 9:52 p.m. report of hot, pressurized oil spurting from a fuel line.

“At first, it was just hot liquid squirting out, then it caught on fire for some unknown reason,” said Jim Williamson, a Fire Department spokesman.

Extremely Hot

The oil was about 700 to 800 degrees, “so you don’t just walk up and put a plug on it,” Williamson said.

The two victims were working on the pipes when the fuel somehow escaped, apparently scalding them, Williamson said. A third worker escaped with burns on his hands and back. The fuel spraying out thwarted efforts to rescue the two workers, who may have already been dead, the spokesman said. Then the flames ignited.

Although the victims were tentatively identified and their families had been notified, a coroner’s spokesman said dental records would have to be matched for a positive identification before the names will be made public. Unocal officials also declined to release the names.

The blaze occurred in a unit of the refinery called the fluid catalytic cracker, or FCC, which breaks down a heavy, molasses-like diesel oil into lighter hydrocarbons, said Carol Scott, a spokeswoman for Unocal.

On the Scene

Investigators for Unocal, the Fire Department and the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were on the scene Friday.

“We know there was a leak from the auxiliary column of the FCC,” Scott said.

However, it was not known how the leak started or exactly how the fuel ignited, she said. The flow to the refinery unit was shut off as soon as the leak was detected, she said.

Twenty-seven fire companies battled the inferno, using water to cool nearby fuel lines, tanks and other equipment to keep the flames from spreading. A Fire Department spokesman said the diesel oil leaked into a diked area and the flames were then put out by fire-retardant foam at about 3 a.m. The California Highway Patrol closed the Anaheim Street off-ramp from the Harbor Freeway from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

The oil company did not release an estimate of the damage.

“We can’t do it until we get in there. We’re still cleaning up,” Scott said.

Damage Confined

The damage was confined to the catalytic cracker unit. Except for the cracker and another that feeds from it, the refinery “is operating normally,” she said.

A minor fire was reported at the same refinery on Feb. 7. There were no injuries. The two blazes are not related, Scott said.

The Unocal refinery was cited for more than 40 general safety violations in an inspection in December, 1984, said Richard Stevens, a spokesman for OSHA. The company was fined more than $200,000 in 1985 by OSHA.

Stevens said he was uncertain whether any of the violations pertained to the catalytic cracker unit.

Unocal’s Scott said, “We don’t see any relationship between those citations and this accident.”