The blast that injured four employees had many residents thinking they were experiencing an earthquake. The explosion did register 1.9 on the seismographs. A small fire on the ground was quickly extinguished by about four dozen firemen from Torrence and neighboring beach cities.
Torrance Fire Department Capt. Steve Deuel said that as a safety measure, the refinery’s flare system sent flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air. “There was an activation of their flare system, which is a safety feature where you see a large column of black smoke, big flame in the sky. It’s like a safety valve,” Deuel said. “They typically will take the product that’s involved … and route it up the stack and burn it off.”
Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson told reporters the Torrance explosion registered on a nearby seismometer operated by the Caltech/USGS Southern California Seismic Network. “The shaking was equivalent to a magnitude 1.7 quake and was only felt in the immediate vicinity of the explosion,” said the L.A. Times.
Torrence police issued a “shelter-in-place order,” right after the explosion, asking people to remain indoors. The order was lifted later, but a smoke advisory was issued by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
The fire occurred at the refinery’s gasoline processing unit, close to busy Crenshaw Boulevard. The sprawling refinery covers about 750 acres, according to ExxonMobil Corp. and processes around 155,000 barrels of crude oil per day. On average, the refinery produces 1.8 million gallons of gasoline annually. The refinery is just one of a half-dozen major refineries in the South Bay and Harbor Area.
The cause of the explosion is under investigation and the total amount of the damage is still being assessed, said a company spokesman. Reuters is reporting that an unnamed source told the oil industry publication OPIS that an “electrostatic precipitator exploded as workers were doing maintenance on a nearby fluid catalytic cracking unit.” The source said it could take up to a year to repair.
