Incident Report Subject: US - Evacuation lifted for area near oil tank explosion Date of Email report: Sat 04/05/2013 08:46 Report Detail:
more than two dozen homes were evacuated for almost a full day after an oil tank exploded Thursday night and a second tank exploded early Friday morning in Livingston Parish. No injuries were reported. Residents were allowed to return to their homes Friday evening. The Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office said the explosions happened on Linder Road near Arnold Road in Denham Springs, LA around 10:30 p.m. Thursday and 4:30 a.m. Friday. Linder Road is closed at Arnold. There is no word on when the road will reopen. Firefighters say the fire is out and they're now working on the hot spots. Once the hot spots are out, residents can expect to be able to return to their homes. They expect the hot spots to be extinguished Friday evening. Firefighters started spraying a foam blanket around 3 p.m. Friday to get the fire under control. The fire was out around 5 p.m. and began working on hot spots and cooling down the tanks. About 2,300 barrels of oil, which is more than 96,000 gallons of crude, were inside the two tanks. The oil is what leaked out of the tanks and the vapor from it was fueling the fire. Because the winds were blowing the fumes toward vacant land, only about 30 homes in a one-mile radius of the explosion site were evacuated. Once the fire is completely out, crews will be able to go in and investigate what caused the explosion. An early investigation shows lightning may have sparked the explosion. DEQ is on-sight monitoring the air quality from the fumes. Crews say they will being the cleanup process Saturday. Denbury Resources Inc. owns the facility where the tanks are located. They are based out of Plano, Texas. According to the Livingston Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Facebook page, the Denbury Corporate Office published a statement saying they would like to reimburse those displaced by the explosion. Here is the statement as it is posted by the Livingston Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: Linder Road Fire From Denbury Corporate Office: Sorry for your inconvenience but due to safety factors we had to evacuate the area. We would like to reimburse those displaced by this incident for out of pocket expenses. Please contact myself, John Fournet, at the number below or my supervisor, Mark William, at 601-209-4896 or James Fields at 817-675-9339. We will work with the local authorities to make sure everything is secure and safe. Thank you for your cooperation. Additional Documentation:
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