Fire at Chevron refinery in California contained, officials say

California firefighters contained a huge fire overnight in the unit of jet fuel production in the Chevron Refinery of El Segundo near Los Angeles.

Residents at El Segundo, about 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Los Angeles, reported that they felt a big explosion at 21:30 local time (04:30 GMT) on Thursday, with orange tongues and column of visible smoke around a refinery.

City officials say there is no general threat or current evacuation orders. The reason for the explosion is under investigation.

In a statement, Chevron described it as a “isolated fire” and said that “all the refinery and contractors’ employees have been calculated and there are no injuries.”

The company said: “The evacuation orders of the residents of the region have not been put through the emergency response agencies that monitor the accident, and no abuses have been discovered by the fence line monitoring system.”

It is not clear how much damage suffered from the refinery from the explosion and fire.

Los Angeles Karen Bass said in a statement that the Chevron Refinery is located near Los Angeles Airport and providing its jet fuel for its operations, although there is no immediate effect on the facility.

Flights at the airport operate normally.

The El Segundo refinery, which was built in 1911, is the second largest Chevron in the United States and produces 285,000 barrels of crude oil every day.

It provides fifth among all car fuel and 40 % of the consuming jet fuel in southern California, Reuters said.

The mayor of El Segundo Chris Pimintl said that firefighters were able to respond immediately to the explosion.

“Our station is about 25 miles away from the doors of Chevron,” Pimintl told reporters. “Obviously, we are very worried, and there are a lot of investigative works to do to find out what happened.”

The fire was visible as Los Angeles and filled the near air with the smell of gasoline.

In addition to an investigation of the explosion, officials in El Segundo said they were watching air quality levels to obtain signs of pollution.

One of the close residents, Mark Rogers, told the Los Angeles Times that the explosion was amazing for the close people.

“I believed that we got a bank or something like that,” Mr. Rogers told the local newspaper. The other resident, Keith Muhr, said that the fire seemed to be “300 feet”.

“I did not know whether a plane crashed, or both an earthquake,” he said.

With additional reports of Crystal Hayes in Los Angeles.