BP Cherry Point Fire: Washington Crews Fight Flames At State's Largest Oil Refinery

FERNDALE, Wash. (AP) — Fire crews doused a dramatic blaze that broke out Friday at Washington's largest oil refinery, sending up towering flames and creating a thick plume of black smoke visible for miles.

Workers at the BP Cherry Point refinery near Blaine in northwest Washington's Whatcom County were evacuated shortly after the fire started at about 2:30 p.m. in a tower on the refinery's south side. The fire was out by 4 p.m., BP spokesman Scott Dean said.

The Bellingham Herald reported that about 100 evacuated workers gathered in a parking lot to watch the flames.

All employees and contractors who were at the site were safe and accounted for, Dean said, although he could not provide a precise figure Friday night. One contractor complained of knee pain and went to a local hospital for observation, the spokesman said.

Dean couldn't say what the tower is normally used for or what it contained.

Television footage showed fire crews sending several streams of water onto the fire and also using retardant foam to douse the tower.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the fire or the extent of damage.

The refinery continues to produce products for customers, Dean said, adding it was "too soon to speculate on future supply impacts."

The one-square-mile refinery employs more than 800 people and can process as much as 230,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Alaska. From that amount, the refinery has the ability to produce 2.5 million gallons of jet fuel, 3.5 million gallons of gasoline, 2.2 million gallons of diesel, 360,000 gallons of butane and 140,000 gallons of propane.

According to the BP website, the refinery is the largest supplier of fuel for the Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, British Columbia, airports. It also provides 20 percent of Washington state's gasoline, the website said.

The refinery was fined more than $69,000 in 2010 for 13 serious safety violations, state Department of Labor and Industries spokesman Hector Castro said. He added that all five of the state's refineries have been fined for safety regulations.

Inspectors were heading to Cherry Point to investigate Friday's fire.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was sending an air-monitoring crew to make sure there was no danger to those nearby, EPA spokesman Mike MacIntyre said.

Mike Abendhoff, another BP spokesman, said the refinery's own air-monitoring crew had already begun tests and he had no reports of danger from fumes.

Comments

[yeti7]

03:56 PM on 02/20/2012

why is this even still open? close it down Pacific NW usa don't need no fracking oil refinery put a solar farm there instead

[Chipher]

06:38 PM on 02/19/2012

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was sending an air-monitoring crew to make sure there was no danger to those nearby, EPA spokesman Mike MacIntyre said."

Yeah, like they said Ground Zero was safe.

[Moxo]

01:56 PM on 02/19/2012

Ahh... I guess Exxon will use the BP fire as an excuse to raise the price of Exxon gasoline.

[WESmith]

04:39 PM on 02/19/2012

ExxonMobil sold all of their gas stations in the US. They don't really care or have any control. They are making their profits overseas. They sold as many of their refineries as the government allowed, too. And they 'Plugged and Abandoned' 90% of their oil wells in the US.
Exxon is making a profit in the US with their Tiger-brand Coffee.
Anyone that still owns a gasoline-powered vehicle after 40 years of warning that they are bad for the environment and our economy are Deniers!

[rodjard]

01:47 PM on 02/19/2012

Oh gee, Just another reason to get rid of oil as a
viable fuel source.
How many reasons can we think of today class.
My goodness, we have already written 101 good
reasons on the board. O.K. now we have 102
We have almost that many for getting rid of nuclear
energy too.
O.K. Class Have we made any progress at getting
our Congress to listen to us.
No progress at all. We will just have to keep working
on this problem or DIE trying.

[WESmith]

04:44 PM on 02/19/2012

We were so proud of ourselves in the 1970s. We were going to be foreign oil free by the end of the century. By 2010, gasoline-powered vehicles would be a thing of the past. We had electric cars, alternative fuel vehicles, hybrids and Gasohol.
It was hard, but I weaned myself off of gasoline. The upside was that after 28 years, I found that I had saved $100,000 by car pooling. I had invested that money and the value tripled.
Glad I didn't wait for politicians to help me.

[propackage]

12:18 PM on 02/19/2012

well I wonder whose fault this BP problem will be blamed on, and this is why we didn't need that pipeline from Canada to Mexico.

[WESmith]

04:48 PM on 02/19/2012

There are hundreds of OIL pipelines between Canada and Texas. They are planing on pumping asphaltenes through that pipeline. They would be stupid to make gasoline out of this asphaltene. Gasoline only makes about a nickel a gallon profit. There are very profitable things they can make out of asphaltenes.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

06:46 PM on 02/19/2012

They want to pipe it to the Gulf so they can ship it to China. They originally wanted the pipeline to go to the west coast of Canada but the people there fought it and wouldn't let the nasty stuff anywhere near them.

[tjconkster]

11:45 AM on 02/19/2012

Here we go..Goldman Sachs will be speculating on this fire and the price of fuel will be going up this week....

[Dr Scott]

10:53 AM on 02/19/2012

I'm curious as to why the Keystone Pipeline wasn't routed to Washington instead of Texas? I can't imagine there would have been such an uproar if the pipeline proposed to cross only one state.

[rodjard]

01:53 PM on 02/19/2012

Our oil company refineries were going to process it
before it was sent somewhere else.

[WESmith]

04:51 PM on 02/19/2012

I doubt that the Washington oil refineries could handle the asphaltenes from Canada. The refineries in Texas were upgraded to handle the thick crude from Venezuela.

[Chipher]

06:42 PM on 02/19/2012

...the KOCH refineries in Texas....who will own the 1000-foot wide PRIVATE SUPER CORRIDOR splitting the USA in half from North Dakota to Texas. I'd sure like to be the security fence contractor on that!! We can't secure Mexico, but we can secure Koch!

[repugnicansfearme]

09:59 AM on 02/19/2012

I guess we won't see this footage on one of those "feel good" oil company commericals?

[trumphent]

06:36 PM on 02/19/2012

I guess we won't see this footage on one of those "feel good" oil company commerical­s?

Do you mean those endless ads from BP? The ones that keep insisting the Gulf of Mexico is only a virtural puddle and not made out of real ocean water?

[repugnicansfearme]

07:30 PM on 02/19/2012

Yes-- those commercials which make me want to kick my TV. I like the ones as well which picture "normal" everyday people who say "Hi- I'm a minority, and an engineer, and they chose me to stand up here........" OR, my absolute FAVES!!! How gasoline CAN ACTUALLY CLEAN YOUR ENGINE!!! Imagine that!!?? An internal combustion engine's gasoline can blow up inside the cylinders, and then clean the engine. Its freaking amazing, and a FREAKING LIE.

[Labor Party]

05:31 AM on 02/20/2012

HA!.................."We Agree".

[watajob]

01:34 AM on 02/19/2012

Uncontrolled combustion of petroleum products at various stages of refining. Nah! Absolutely no danger of toxic fumes. Seriously. No, really.

[WESmith]

04:55 PM on 02/19/2012

Petroleum is dead plants and animals. What is the difference between hydrocarbons and carbohydrates? One we burn in our cars. The other we burn in our bodies. Both exhaust the same chemicals.

[ProudMarineWife]

11:19 PM on 02/18/2012

To all the so called "experts", people venting, and others running your mouths.... Lets get a couple facts straight. 1. BP supplies hundreds of jobs in Whatcom County. We should be thankful for them. 2. BP gives back millions to our community. 3. Shuts down every year for a turn around where production is very low or none and we don't see gas prices go up.4. Gas prices were already speculated to increase in the news prior to any of the BP explosion. 5. MOST OF US USE GAS DAILY no one would want a refinery in their backyard but we have one of the SAFEST, newer, well protected refineries out there. 6 Most houses and neighborhoods were built after the refinery and people chose to live there BUT IF WE ALL SHOULD BE SAYING ANYTHING IT SHOULD BE THANK YOU FOR THE FAST RESPONSE, WELL TRAINED INDIVIDUALS making sure nothing got worse, out of control and NO ONE WAS HARMED.

[Aladdin Sane1]

08:37 PM on 02/18/2012

Another day, another BP safety "event."

[Rodney Norman]

02:52 PM on 02/18/2012

They did it intentionally to drive up price$

[Kenz300]

02:51 PM on 02/18/2012

BP has a long documented history of safety violations..........

[ProudMarineWife]

11:20 PM on 02/18/2012

Most BP refineries do true but BP Cherry point has very few.

[BBackSoon]

02:46 PM on 02/18/2012

I would have to say the problem is an Oil Refinery being fined about $5k Per Serious Safety Violation.

[WESmith]

04:59 PM on 02/19/2012

We should close all refineries down. Even if they don't spill something, we spill millions of gallons of oil, gasoline, diesel, and antifreeze a year on our roads made of the same nasty stuff they want to pump through the Keystone Pipeline. We are lucky. Rain washes this sludge into the environment so our roads don't get slippery.

[BBackSoon]

09:20 AM on 02/20/2012

The story from the little burgs that surround our local refineries, is that the dirt burns.

[kareemachan]

01:31 PM on 02/18/2012

Another fine happening brought to us courtesy of BP.

[sigh]

[WESmith]

05:03 PM on 02/19/2012

Why did we contract BP to produce our oil in the Gulf of Mexico? We knew they were screw ups. Probably greed. We The People made $27 billion selling our oil in the GOM in 2008. In 2009, We The People only made $9 billion. By 2010, We The People were quit worried. We The People make three times the worth of oil produced in taxes levied.