DEER PARK, Texas — A pipeline explosion near Houston sent massive flames over neighborhoods for hours Monday, forcing evacuations and shelter-in-place orders and melting playground equipment as firefighters worked to keep nearby homes from burning.
Operators shut off the flow of liquefied natural gas, but there was so much left in the 20-inch (51-centimeter) pipeline that firefighters could do little but monitor it and hose down adjacent homes until it burned. That could take hours, perhaps until Tuesday, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. said.
“The fire is very hot, so a lot of adjacent house structures continue to catch fire even though we’re pouring a lot of water on them,” Mouton said.
Local authorities declined to speculate on the cause of the fire or the role a burned-out car near the source of the flames may have played. The pipeline’s owner, Dallas-based Energy Transfer, said in a statement that it was “aware of initial reports” that a car had struck valve equipment, but did not provide further details, including where the reports came from.
A firefighter was slightly injured, the only case reported so far.
Firefighters were dispatched to the scene at 9:55 a.m. after an explosion at a distribution station in Deer Park and just outside La Porte shook adjacent homes and businesses. Nearly 1,000 homes are in the evacuation zone, said Lee Woodward, a La Porte spokesman.
Geselle Melina Guerra said she and her boyfriend heard the explosion while they were having breakfast in their camper van.
“All of a sudden we heard a loud bang, and then I saw something bright, like orange, coming from our back door that’s outside,” said Guerra, who lives in the evacuation zone.
Her boyfriend woke her brother up and they ran to their car.
“I was completely panicked, pacing around the living room, not really knowing what to do or what was going on,” Guerra said. “I thought maybe it was a plane that had crashed near our house.”
Students at several public schools were ordered to take shelter as police blocked off a large area. Some evacuees gathered at San Jacinto College, which closed its campus after the blast. Among them was Evan Wyman, who was reunited with her dog, Baxter, after police went to her home.
“I just know my dog was saved,” Wyman said.
From an environmental standpoint, it’s better to let the fire burn out than to try to attack the flames with some kind of foam or liquid extinguisher, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston.
“Otherwise it’s going to release a lot of volatile organic compounds into the environment,” he said.
There will, however, undoubtedly be negative environmental consequences, including a release of soot, carbon and organic matter, he added.
Energy Transfer said air monitoring equipment was being installed near the plume of fire and smoke, which could be seen from at least 10 miles away.
According to a statement released Monday afternoon by the Harris County Pollution Control Department, no volatile organic compounds were detected. The statement said the particles emitted by the smoke are moderate and do not pose an immediate risk to healthy people, although “sensitive populations may want to take precautions.”
Natural gas liquids are primarily used in the manufacturing of plastics and basic and intermediate chemicals, Krishnamoorti said.
Houston, Texas’ largest city, is the country’s petrochemical heartland, home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are common in the region, some fatal, raising recurring questions about the industry’s efforts to protect people and the environment.
Sanchez said they were used to evacuations because they live near other factories near the highway, but he had never seen an explosion before in his 10 years living there.
“We just drove as far as we could because we didn’t know what was happening,” Sanchez said from a car parked at a gas station near his university.
The fire ravaged nearby power lines, and the website PowerOutage.us reported that several thousand customers were without power at one point in Harris County.
In addition to the damage closest to the flame, the region’s extensive pipeline infrastructure will also need to be closely inspected and monitored for damage, Krishnamoorti said.
“All of these things will need to be checked and monitored,” he said, but “in the grand scheme of things” the fire “will not significantly disrupt supply chains.”
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This article has been updated to correct that the pipeline carries natural gas liquids, not liquefied natural gas.
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AP reporters Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
