Residents in parts of St. John Parish were forced to evacuate their homes Friday morning after a pillar of fire erupted from a storage tank the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Garyville.
In yet another near miss at an HF-using refinery, a fire caused an evacuation order for two miles around the Marathon Refinery in Mississippi. Here are reports from L’Observateur newspaper, and WBRZ.
Officials were responding to what they described as a naphtha release and a fire at one of the refinery’s storage facilities. Naphtha is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture commonly used as a solvent in soaps or varnishes.
St. John Parish President Jaclyn Hotard declared an emergency and ordered the evacuation of a two-mile radius around the fire. That order was lifted around 2:20 p.m. Friday.
Torrance Refinery Action Alliance 