Video: Fire at Chevron Oil Refinery in El Segundo Creates Smoke Plume Seen for Miles

A flare-off at the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo, California, was seen for miles on Sept. 17.

El Segundo fire officials responded to the Chevron refinery at around 7:30 a.m. local time, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The department then realized that it was a controlled burn, said El Segundo Fire Department Battalion Chief Breck Slover. He said the refinery lost power and initiated the flare-off for safety reasons.

“It’s a common occurrence, but this happened to be a pretty big one,” he told the LA Times.

A number of people across Los Angeles, including the airport, said they could see it.

El Segundo police said the flare-off poses no threat to the nearby community, ABC7 reported.

Other details about the flare off are not clear.

According to Chevron, the oil refinery in El Segundo “provides jobs for more than 1,100 Chevron employees and 500 contractors, covers approximately 1,000 acres, has more than 1,100 miles of pipelines, and is capable of refining 290 thousand barrels of crude oil per day.”

A scheduled flare-off at a Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo, California, on Sept. 17, sent up a dark plume of smoke that was visible for miles across Los Angeles. (Amit Nayar via Storyful)

It adds: “Transportation fuels–gasoline, jet and diesel–are the primary products refined from the crude oil. We are responsible caretakers of our land and the environment, we operate our own electricity, steam, and water treatment facilities, and even maintain one of the only two remaining preserves in the world for the endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly.”

The facility is the largest oil refinery on the U.S. West Coast, producing more than 274,000 barrels of crude oil each day.

El Segundo is a city located in Los Angeles County, California with a population 16,654.