‘I thought we got nuked or something.’ Massive explosion, fire at Chevron refinery rocks El Segundo
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- An explosion and fire at a Chevron refinery in El Segundo produced massive flames visible for miles across the South Bay.
- Residents reported feeling a major blast around 9:30 p.m., with orange flames and smoke plumes filling the sky.
- The cause of the incident remained unclear. Officials said the fire was contained by Friday morning.
Mark Rogers was mid-dribble at a South Bay soccer field Thursday evening when he was shocked to see a ball of gas and fire explode into the night sky.
Residents across the South Bay ran outside to find a neon orange hue covering the horizon accompanied by a loud roar as a major fire at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo grew. Guests at Top Golf saw massive flames billowing across the Pacific Coast Highway and ran to their cars.
“I thought we got nuked or something,” Rogers, 34, said.
For about 30 minutes Thursday night, the whirring fire could be heard for miles around, while its orange glow reached even farther. But just as quickly as the fire exploded, it came under control, and by Friday morning life had mostly returned to normal, with locals walking their dogs and a few surfers carrying their boards in the shadow of the refinery.
Local officials said the blast, while dramatic, did not pose a threat to the public and emergency workers from both local cities and Chevron were able to quickly get the situation under control. Chevron and a union representing plant workers reported no injuries from the blast, and the sprawling refinery — one of the largest in the nation — looked no worse for wear, at least from the outside.
But the blast left many questions about what went wrong. At least one worker claimed in a lawsuit filed Friday that he was injured in the fire, though the suit did not include specifics. His lawyer alleged the fire was a “preventable disaster” that occurred because plant operators cut corners.
There were also lingering questions about how the incident might affect local air quality and gas prices.
The blaze originated in a processing unit in the southeast corner of the refinery, El Segundo officials said. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the South Coast Air Quality Management District have responded to the incident. Chevron will investigate the cause of the fire.
Chevron released a statement calling it an “isolated fire” and stated that “all refinery personnel and contractors have been accounted for and there are no injuries.” The company did not say whether the incident would affect its operations or detail the extent of the damage.
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While the company said there were no “exceedances” recorded along its fence-line air quality motioning system, air quality officials said there were some spikes of dangerous chemicals detected.
The monitors surrounding the refinery recorded elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, quickly vaporizing chemicals that can cause a wide range of adverse health effects when inhaled, such as headaches and irritated airways, according to South Coast Air Quality Management District Executive Director Wayne Nastri. Prolonged exposure to some of these pollutants, such as benzene and formaldehyde, can increase the risk of developing certain types of cancers.
Nastri said this pollution had dropped to normal or below-normal levels between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Friday.
Nastri said the fire began in the refinery’s hydrocracking unit, equipment that produces jet fuel and diesel.
David Campbell, field director with USW Local 675, said the fire broke out in the refinery’s Isomax complex, which converts gas oil into higher-value products like jet fuel.
“We’ve definitely had fires at the Isomax before, I couldn’t tell you the year, but this is one of the more spectacular fires,” Campbell said in a phone interview Friday morning. The union represents proprietary employees of Chevron, including some who were working at the plant at the time of the explosion. Campbell spoke with one of them, who confirmed that no one was injured.
It’s too soon, however, to know what caused the fire, Campbell said.
Authorities are “going to investigate what caused the accident,” he said, but first “they need to either block or stop the fuel that’s going to the fire before they put the fire out. Obviously if you put the fire out but don’t stop the fuel, you’re in danger of there being another explosion.”
Keith Mohr, 53, lives just south of the refinery in Manhattan Beach. After he felt the blast, he told his wife to grab their dogs and head to the car. They drove south away from the flames and returned home only after officials said there was no public safety threat.
“This was 300-foot flames,” Mohr said, noting that he’s lived by the refinery for more than two decades and had never seen anything like the inferno Thursday night. “I didn’t know if a plane crashed or there was an earthquake or both.”
In north Redondo Beach, Julian Reese said he and his dad felt a major blast and then ran outside, seeing flames fill the sky.
“I ran out thinking it was a rocket,” Julian, 13, said.
“It shook our windows,” his dad, Bryan Reese, said. “I thought it was a quake.”
The South Bay is home to several major oil production facilities, and mishaps are not uncommon.
In 2022, it took firefighters two hours to put out a fire at the El Segundo facility. In 2020, a fire at the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Carson sent flames at least 100 feet into the air. In one of the most serious incidents, several workers at the Torrance refinery were hurt during an explosion in 2015 that federal regulations later concluded posed serious risks to the public.
The Chevron refinery is the state’s second largest amid a shrinking landscape of oil refiners — an issue that pushed California leaders last month to pass a legislative package aimed at supporting the oil industry, hoping to keep gas prices from soaring higher during the state’s transition away from fossil fuels.
It remains to be seen how the fire at the El Segundo plant will affect the global oil market or local gas prices, but experts say that such an incident typically spikes wholesale prices, which is reflected at the pumps within a few days.
It didn’t appear that the refinery was closed Friday, but if it does have to shut down — especially for a longer period — that could substantially raise gasoline prices.
Environmental and community groups pointed to the fire as another example of the dangers that come with the continued reliance on fossil fuels.
“This massive fireball shows how dangerous aging, fire-prone fossil fuel infrastructure is to our communities,” said Christina Scaringe, the California climate policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This explosion is one more reminder of how urgently we need our leaders to speed the transition to clean energy to protect people and the planet.”
Andrea Vega, a senior organizer with Food & Water Watch Southern California, used the moment to question why Newsom and California state lawmakers backed the major legislative package that supports increased oil production in Kern County and backtracks some gasoline regulations. Vega said leaders should instead be calling for “a rapid transition to safe, sustainable renewable energy now, not to keep entrenching these facilities in our communities.”
But in Manhattan Beach and El Segundo, the two beach communities that border the refinery, the fire didn’t seem to bring much disruption Friday morning.
Construction crews were back at work and nearby schools were in session. Some residents strolled past shops with a cup of coffee in one hand and leashed pets in the other.
On occasion though, as the wind died down, a light scent of rubber wafted through the air — a reminder of what’s become the main concern for locals.
“Sometimes the air doesn’t smell right,” said Nevada Solis, who lives in El Segundo and was out walking her Chihuahua on Friday morning. The 38-year-old said she worries about airborne toxins that could come from the refinery, especially after an event like Thursday’s. After she moved to the small coastal city five years ago, she began to get headaches.
Jerry Pacheco, 42, echoed her concerns. Outside his El Segundo apartment complex, just a block from the refinery, he said on occasion there’s an odor that smells like methane. He said he’s felt dizzy before after smelling the odor, and has sought medical care.
Local air district officials urged residents nearby Friday to stay indoors and keep their doors and windows shut as firefighters were still responding to the blaze. But, they were hopeful that poor air quality wouldn’t be too extreme, given the intensity of the fire and local weather conditions, which they said likely carried emissions high into the atmosphere.
“The plume of pollutants with that amount of force goes higher up in the atmosphere, above the breathing zone of immediately adjacent residents,” said Seth Shonkoff, executive director of PSE Health Energy, a nonprofit research group that has studied emissions from oil and gas facilities.
Still, it was too early for environmental researchers to draw conclusions about the extent of the health effects from the fire, and they urged people to take precautions.
“During events like this, you often get a double whammy,” Shonkoff said. “You get the impacts from the unburned gaseous material. And you also get the impact of hazardous air pollutants from the partial combustion of the material.”
Staff writers Laurence Darmiento and Hayley Smith contributed to this report.
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