A fireball lit up the sky across the Los Angeles area on Thursday night after an explosion at a Chevron refinery in El Segundo, alarming nearby residents who said it felt like earthquake.
The explosion, shortly before 10 p.m. local time, produced a giant orange blaze that could be seen from miles away. More than two hours later, at least one fire still roared, though it had dimmed considerably. 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.
Ed Wolfman, 72, a retiree in nearby Manhattan Beach, said his family was at home having dinner, breaking their fast at the end of Yom Kippur, “when we heard this boom and the house just shook.”
“We thought it was an earthquake and we held our breath, waiting for an aftershock,” he said.
Moments later, he said, the son of one of his guests called to say that smoke was billowing into their house, less than a mile from the refinery.
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 police blocked off streets in El Segundo, a beachside city with a heavy industrial presence just south of Los Angeles International Airport. An airport spokesman said flights were not affected. Fire trucks were parked nearby.
While there were no evacuation orders in any nearby communities, Manhattan Beach had issued a shelter in place order for some residents.
Officials said they 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 of Los Angeles said they had been briefed on the fire.
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.
Jesus Jiménez is a Times reporter covering Southern California.
Shawn Hubler is The Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, reporting on the news, trends and personalities of Southern California.
Daniel Victor is a senior editor at The Times on the Live team, which covers breaking and developing news.
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