The night sky over Los Angeles was lit up by a huge blaze at a Chevron oil refinery that choked parts of the city with clouds of acrid smoke. Firefighters responded to reports of a blast at the El Segundo facility, just south of Los Angeles International Airport, at around 9.30 p.m. on Thursday. No one was reported injured, although a shelter-in-place order was issued for parts of Manhattan Beach. According to LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, via KCAL/KCBS, a coalition of responders managed to contain the fire to just one part of the 1,000-acre site. The El Segundo refinery, said to be the largest on the West Coast, can handle up to 290,000 barrels of crude a day, with a total storage capacity of 12.5 million tons. Flights from LAX were operating as usual, although there were concerns for air quality given the smoke and fumes emitted by the blaze. Mark Rogers, 34, was playing in an adult soccer league in nearby Aviation Park when the blast happened, and thick smoke forced the referee to cancel the game. “I thought we got nuked or something,” he told the Los Angeles Times. El Segundo Mayor Chris Pimentel said, “Obviously, we are very concerned, and there is a lot of investigative work to be done to see what has happened.”
Read it at CNN
