Flames visible for miles after a fire erupts at a Chevron refinery outside Los Angeles

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EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters fully extinguished Friday the fire that broke out the night before at a Chevron oil refinery just outside Los Angeles, sending towering flames into the air that were visible for miles.

Officials in El Segundo, California, urged people to stay indoors. By early Friday, the fire was contained and there was no threat to public safety, the city said in a statement. No evacuations were ordered.

“All roads have been reopened after last night's Chevron fire,” the city of El Segundo posted Friday morning.

A Chevron spokesperson confirmed the fire was fully extinguished by late Friday morning.

“Following Chevron’s active response along with support from the cities of El Segundo and Manhattan Beach emergency services, the fire is now out,” the company said in a statement, adding it has launched an internal investigation to determine the cause.

Local air quality monitors showed no air pollution concerns Friday morning in and around El Segundo, but the South Coast Air Quality Management District said they detected elevated levels of volatile organic compounds overnight at the fenceline refinery and community monitors.

Friday morning’s drizzle, marine layer and light winds was keeping the bulk of the plume aloft, the air quality agency said in a statement, but that could change as onshore winds strengthen in the afternoon.

The agency encouraged residents to check their local real-time air quality and to stay indoors, keep windows and doors closed and run their HEPA air purifiers if they see or smell smoke or see elevated air pollution levels.

“The situation is evolving, and we continue to monitor it closely,” the agency said.

According to the company, the fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. at a processing unit at the southeast corner of the Chevron refinery in El Segundo, a beachside city located about a mile (1.6 kilometers) south of Los Angeles International Airport.

Residents nearby described feeling a rumble and then seeing the flames.

“Pretty much the whole sky was orange,” said Sam Daugherty, who told KABC-TV he lives 10 blocks away and began packing a bag in a panic.

There were no injuries at the refinery and all personnel were accounted for, the company said in a statement late Thursday, adding that a monitoring system indicated the fire did not move beyond the facility’s fence line.

The El Segundo police and fire departments did not immediately comment on the fire, which appeared to have erupted suddenly.

State and local officials monitored the incident as it unfolded Thursday night. California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said it was coordinating with state and local authorities to protect the surrounding community. LA Mayor Karen Bass wrote in a post on X that there was no known impact to the nearby airport.

A shelter-in-place order for nearby Manhattan Beach south of El Segundo was lifted Friday.

Beaches in the region remained open, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, and their crews were not seeing much ash.

The City of El Segundo said Chevron has deployed its health, safety and environment personnel to conduct mobile air quality monitoring in the surrounding communities.

The refinery covers roughly 1.5 square miles (4 square kilometers) and has more than 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) of pipelines, according to the company’s website. The refinery, which has been in operation since 1911, can refine up to 290,000 barrels of crude oil a day, including gasoline, jet and diesel fuels, according to the company's website.

There have been several fires at the refinery in the last decade, the latest in 2022. A fire in 2017 threatened storage tanks and sent huge flames into the sky before crews quickly smothered it. It did not burn near any of the facility's main processing units, Chevron said.

Chevron was fined nearly $1 million by the state of California for a major fire in 2012 at a refinery in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Golden reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.