The fire of the Chevron refinery in California contained, say the managers

Firefighters in California contained a huge night fire in a jet fuel production unit in the El Segundo refinery in Chevron near Los Angeles.

The residents of El Segundo, about 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Los Angeles, said they had a major explosion around 9:30 p.m. local time (04:30 GMT) Thursday, with orange flames and smoke plumes visible around the refinery.

City officials say there is no public threat or evacuation orders currently in place. The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

In a statement, Chevron described it as “isolated fire” and said that “all refinery staff and entrepreneurs had been recorded and that there are no injuries”.

“No evacuation order for residents of the region has been set up by emergency intervention agencies in terms of the incident, and no overtaking has been detected by the system for monitoring the installation lines,” said the company.

We do not know how much damage the refinery has undergone explosion and fire.

The Chevron refinery is located near Los Angeles airport and provides jet fuel for its operations, but there has been no immediate impact on the installation, said the mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass in a press release.

Airport flights work as usual.

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

It provides a fifth of all fuel for motor vehicles and 40% of jet fuel consumed in southern California, Reuters reported.

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

“Our station is about 0.25 mile from the doors of Chevron,” Pimentel told journalists. “Obviously, we are very worried, and there is a lot of investigation work to do to see what happened.”

The fire was visible to Los Angeles and filled the air near the smell of petrol.

In addition to investigating the explosion, officials of the city of El Segundo said they were monitoring air quality levels for signs of pollution.

A nearby resident Mark Rogers told Los Angeles Times that the explosion was surprising for people nearby.

“I thought we were naked or something,” Rogers told the local newspaper. Another resident, Keith Mohr, said that the flames seemed “300 feet”.

“I didn’t know if an airplane crashed or there was an earthquake or both,” he said.

With additional reports from Christal Hayes in Los Angeles.