A fireball lit up the sky across the Los Angeles area on Thursday night after an explosion at a Chevron refinery in El Segundo in Los Angeles County.
The explosion, shortly before 10 p.m. local time, produced a giant orange blaze that could be seen from miles away. More than an hour later, at least one fire still roared, though it had dimmed considerably from photos and videos posted on social media in the immediate aftermath. Large plumes of smoke billowed overhead. Chevron could not immediately be reached for comment.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast or whether there were any injuries.
“We’re trying to figure out what type of fire it is,” said Julio Martinez, a spokesman for the El Segundo Police Department.
Aerial footage captured crews battling multiple blazes across the 1,000-acre facility, which is the size of about 750 football fields. People could be seen in videos running from a nearby golfing facility to drive away.
The nearby city of Manhattan Beach said on social media that there were no immediate evacuation orders, and Officer Martinez said there were none in El Segundo, either. Residents in Manhattan Beach were urged to stay inside their homes.
But Officer Martinez said the authorities were still gathering information on whether there was any danger to the public, which was still dealing with the aftermath of the wildfires that devastated the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas earlier this year.
Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass said they had been briefed on the fire.
The police blocked off streets nearby, as emergency crews worked on the fire.
El Segundo is a beachside city with a heavy industrial presence just south of Los Angeles International Airport. An airport spokesman said flights were not affected.
The facility at El Segundo, home to California’s oil and aerospace industries, was California’s second oil refinery when it opened in 1911. The El Segundo plant is California’s second-biggest oil refinery, according to state records, and represents about 16 percent of the state’s refining capacity per day.
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
Daniel Victor is a senior editor at The Times on the Live team, which covers breaking and developing news.
Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.
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