On Tuesday, a gas pipeline in Oklahoma burst near the Texas border, causing a fiery explosion of fire and sending people 500 feet into the sky.
Incredible footage shows an orange and hot white fireball climbing about half the length of the Eiffel Tower into the night sky along Oklahoma’s Panhandle.
The fire started at around 9:15 p.m. on the Phillips 66 natural gas pipeline in Elmwood on the Oklahoma border, the company said in a statement.
It is clear that the pipeline suffered a rupture, but officials said they were still working to determine the cause.
“There were no injuries associated with the incident and there was no health threat to nearby residences,” Phillips, 66, said in a statement.
It took several hours for firefighters to extinguish the fire. Booker Fire Department estimates It reached a height of 500 feet.
The “pipeline explosion” reportedly turned the sky into a hazy orange glow that could be seen for miles. Elmwood Fire said.
“We are 56 miles from the fire and we can see it,” one person wrote under the department’s Facebook post showing the raging fire.
Another user posted a photo of the fire’s glow from 40 miles away, and another user claimed it could be seen from 130 miles away in Kansas.
A PHMSA spokesperson said the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is investigating the cause of the accident along with the Oklahoma Commission Corporation.
The fire is the second incident involving Phillips 66 in recent weeks.
Earlier this month, a fire broke out at the company’s 285,000 barrel-per-day Bayway refinery in New Jersey, injuring a worker.
A similar incident occurred last year when a fire broke out at a storage tank farm at the company’s 149,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Borger, Texas, injuring six people and sending them to the hospital.
with post wire
