Local News in Brief : Fire Hits Oil Refinery
A small explosion inside a million-dollar crude oil processing unit at the Paramount Petroleum refinery sparked a two-alarm blaze that burned for two hours Tuesday afternoon before county firefighters could put it out, officials said.
The 1:20 p.m. refinery fire at Downey Avenue and Compton Boulevard was confined to the unit, which uses hydrogen to cleanse crude oil of sulfur contents, said Battalion Chief Gordon S. Pearson of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. No injuries were reported during the fire and no one was evacuated from the area, officials said.
Pearson said refinery workers heard “a loud crack. . . . Then the fire was noticed.”
William E. Winters, a Paramount Petroleum spokesman, speculated that the fire may have started from a burst pipe inside the two-story oil purifier.
Winters estimated that it would cost $500,000 to fix the unit and said the refinery would experience a cutback in production while the unit is being rebuilt.
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