CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos or video on a mobile device
CROCKETT — Search warrants were served Wednesday on the owner of the East Bay fuel facility that blew up a day before, as a host of government agencies began probing what caused the fire that closed Interstate 80 and prompted a shelter-in-place order that had 1,200 nearby residents huddling inside their homes for more than seven hours.
Contra Costa Fire Protection District’s investigative unit led the review, which began Wednesday, and included a collection of state and local agencies, fire district spokesperson Steve Hill said at a press conference. As to the cause of the fire, Hill said Wednesday that it was “far too early to know.”
“We always prepare for the unexpected,” he added. “But I’d be hard-pressed to say we expected this yesterday.”
The explosions, which occurred shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday, followed a 4.5-magnitude earthquake that struck near Pleasant Hill in Contra Costa the previous night, and caused flaring at two refineries in Martinez.
Hill said Wednesday it was too early to tell whether the explosions at the Crockett facility was connected to the quake.
“I am not aware of any such connection, but we are not ruling anything out at this point,” he told this news organization, adding that the investigation into the cause of the fire remained in “the very early stages.”
“It’s far too soon to speculate on that sort of thing,” he said.
Located south of Vallejo, the Selby Terminal, as the facility in Crockett is known, is one of 74 operated by NuStar Energy, a publicly-traded company based in San Antonio, Texas that specializes in energy and fuel storage. Company records show the facility on San Pablo Avenue has 24 tanks with a total capacity of 3 million barrels of fuel.
Hill confirmed that ConFire investigative units, joined by officials with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, the county’s health services and hazardous-materials departments, Cal/OSHA staff and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, had served warrants on NuStar Energy, just before noon Wednesday. He added that the company had been “nothing but cooperative” with the investigation.
“One should make no assumptions about the character of NuStar,” Hill said. “It’s a common practice for big investigations like this one with multiple moving parts.”
NuStar operations have closed down pending the investigation.
The blaze ignited two 126,000-gallon ethanol tanks that were “more or less completely destroyed,” Hill said. Flames then spread to nearby vegetation, causing a massive fireball visible from the highway and clouds of black smoke billowing into the sky.
Around 200 firefighters and emergency personnel responded to the scene, battling the flames for hours with a combination of foam and water to stop the blaze from spreading. Wednesday’s cleanup involved surrounding what’s left of the tanks with foam-blanketed “containment pods” to prevent flare-ups, Hill said.
Officials were also able to evaluate all of the nearby tanks Wednesday and ensure their structural integrity, he said. But firefighters’ inability to determine dilution levels of other tanks’ materials led the agency to put fire-suppression crews remained on standby through Wednesday, however, out of an “abundance of caution,” Hill said.
No major injuries were reported; crews rescued one worker who was initially trapped at the facility, according to a spokesman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
The agency has sent inspectors to the site to evaluate any possible workplace safety violations at the facility, and has issued an “order to preserve” on the two tanks and pipes involved in the fire, the Cal/OSHA spokesperson said.
One firefighter was treated and released overnight for minor injuries, Hill said.
Witnesses said the sound of the explosions reverberated for miles. As smoke unfurled, authorities shut down Interstate 80 and Cummings Skyway, San Pablo Avenue and other roadways leading to the NuStar site, and issued remain-in-place alerts to residents in Crockett and Rodeo out of concern for possible air contaminants. The tiny unincorporated community of Tormey, just next to the site, was evacuated.
County health officials mainly worried that the smoke would create unhealthy levels of particulates in the air, after initial testing on Tuesday night showed an unusually high concentration of particulates, said Randy Sawyer, chief environmental health and hazardous materials officer for Contra Costa County.
But by the time the county issued an all-clear late that night, officials were confident that the air quality was safe. The highways were eventually reopened around the same time.
“The smoke itself is the biggest concern with short-term, acute exposure,” Sawyer said. “We’re not expecting any long-term impacts from the smoke with this fire.”
Still, all John Swett Unified School District schools were closed on Wednesday in the Rodeo and Crockett area, and classes were canceled at CCCOE Golden Gate Community School in Rodeo.
In comments Wednesday, Contra Costa County supervisor John Gioia noted that NuStar site is not regulated under the county’s industrial-safety ordinance. Adopted about two decades ago, the ordinance regulates petroleum refineries and chemical plants — including the Phillips 66 Rodeo Refinery, the Air Liquide-Rodeo Hydrogen Plant, the Shell Oil Martinez Refinery and Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery — but does not cover the Selby Terminal or other sites where petroleum products and other chemicals are stored.
Gioia said he and fellow county supervisor Federal Glover, who chair the committee that covers the ordinance, plan to propose expanding the ordinance to cover fuel storage sites, and will bring up the possible changes at an upcoming supervisors meeting.
