Category Archives: Fire

AMPORTS, Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick, Fire, Petroleum Coke (Petcoke), Port of Benicia, Valero Benicia Refinery

Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick gives details on the 4-alarm fire at the Benicia Port

News Conference, partial transcript of Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick’s remarks on the 4-Alarm Port Fire
By Roger Straw, April 9, 2022
Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick on April 9, 2022 concerning large pier fire at the Port of Benicia.  Video of the presser can’t be embedded here, but it is available from Announcements on the City Website at https://benftp.exavault.com/p/IT/Sandy/Benicia%20Port%20Fire.

What follows is my rough transcription of most of Benicia Fire Chief Josh Chadwick’s statement to the press on April 9, 2022 concerning the 4-alarm fire at the Port of Benicia.  (Taken from audio that is difficult at best.)  – R.S.

>> Chief Chadwick reported that the fire started in a small outbuilding at the base of the petcoke silos.  The conveyor belt that goes from there up toward where the ships are loaded was catching fire.  At first the Fire Department thought they had a petcoke fire.

The fire at the base of the silo was quickly extinguished, but the crews had a difficult time accessing the conveyor belt system.  It’s large rubber tracks were on fire all the way to the top.

The fire dropped from the top of the conveyor belt and ultimately caught the pier on fire.  The pier is large with a blacktop road surface, and underneath it are large timbers that have been soaked in creosote.  When those start burning, they are very difficult to access and extinguish, and they were the main part of the fire during this incident.  We requested 4 fire boats, as they are the only real access to these creosote logs beneath the pier.

Our biggest concern was the unlikely possibility of a shift in wind direction.  Light winds have continued to move from the west, blowing the smoke out onto the Strait.

The other concern would be hazardous materials.  Obviously there’s a lot of chemicals in that wood, and everything else on that pier that would’ve made its way into the water, and we are working closely with Fish and Wildlife and US Coast Guard on that issue….

We have also been in contact with AMPORTS and Valero Refinery…

(in response to press questions…)

We had a very similar pier fire early on in my career, and it burned for a couple of days…

That pier is used for offloading oil from ships, loading petcoke onto ships, and offloading cars…

It will likely be 24 to 48 hours before the fire is completely extinguished.

Hazardous materials have burned.  Petcoke is considered a hazardous material.  I do not know if any of it burned, but my understanding is that the large volume of it in the silos is not currently on fire, so if it did, it was a small amount at the base.  On the pier itself, there are numerous hazardous materials: there are tanks of gasoline, tanks of diesel that we can’t get to because there’s fire underneath it.  That has the potential to burn, but for the most part, what’s been burning is the timber that has been soaked in creosote, and that also is hazardous.  When it burns it emits hazardous smoke.  …yes there are a few small tanks on top…

I’m not a hazardous materials expert, but if you know what railroad ties are,…it’s like a black oil that they have used for many years to keep lumber from rotting if it’s in the ground or water.

QUESTION about the impact of these chemicals on the environment and the ocean if some of that petcoke did burn, and these other products…

My primary concern is with the impact to our citizens in their air, and right now 100% due to favorable wind conditions, we haven’t had that issue.  And the same with my fire crews on the scene – they have not been impacted by that.  As far as what it does to the environment, that would be more a question for the Bay Area Air Quality District.

Benicia Fire Department, Evacuation, Fire, Port of Benicia

4-Alarm Fire at Port of Benicia – video and report

Crews battling large fire at Benicia Port

ABC7 Bay Area News, April 9, 2022

BENICIA, Calif. (KGO) — A blaze at a Benicia port has grown to a four-alarm fire, officials said on Saturday.

The fire started just after noon at a dock along 1200 block of Bayshore Rd.

Most of the longshoremen working at the dock have been evacuated, officials said.

“Fire at Port of Benicia, a dock ramp is fully engulfed,” tweeted Cornell Barnard who is at the scene.

Officials say there is no shelter-in-place order but could change depending on the wind direction, but in a tweet, Benicia fire department says, “wind conditions are favorable…there continues to be no threat to the public.”

Benicia police are asking motorists to avoid the area due to “heavy police and fire presence.”

At a 4:30p.m. press conference, an official said no injuries have been reported.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Crude Oil, Derailment, Fire, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil spill, Oil trains, Tar sands crude, Washington State

Oil train derailed near site of earlier terrorist attempt, officials say

KIMA News Yakima, by LISA BAUMANN | Associated Press, Wednesday, December 23, 2020

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — Federal and local authorities were investigating a fiery oil car train derailment north of Seattle near where two people were arrested last month and accused of attempting a terrorist attack on train tracks to disrupt plans for a natural gas pipeline.

Seven train cars carrying crude oil derailed and five caught fire Tuesday, sending a large plume of black smoke into the sky close to the Canadian border. There were no injuries in the derailment about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Seattle

Officials were asked about recent attempts to sabotage oil trains, but they said the investigation was just beginning.

“We’ve not been able to get close enough to the site to make an evaluation,” Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo said late Tuesday.

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board along with the FBI and other federal, state and local agencies were on the scene.

During a news conference Wednesday, officials spoke about their disaster planning they had done to prepare for incidents similar to what occurred with the train derailment. They also spoke about how the impact of the derailment to the surrounding environment could have been worse.

“As far as crude oil derailments and fires, this could not have occurred in a better location with regard to minimizing environmental impact,” said David Byers, who manages disaster response for the Washington Department of Ecology.

Last month federal authorities in Seattle charged two people with a terrorist attack on train tracks, saying they placed “shunts” on Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks. “Shunts” consist of a wire strung across the tracks, mimicking the electrical signal of a train. The devices can cause trains to automatically brake and can disable railroad crossing guards.

CUSTER, WA – DECEMBER 22: In this aerial view from a drone, a train carrying crude oil burns while derailed on December 22, 2020 in Custer, Washington. BNSF Railway Company released a statement saying the train was traveling north when seven tank cars derailed, resulting in a fire and evacuations of the area. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

Authorities said the pair were opposed to the construction of a natural gas pipeline across British Columbia when they interfered with the operation of a railroad in Washington state.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has said there have been dozens of such cases involving BNSF tracks since January, with a message claiming responsibility posted on an anarchist website early this year.

In one, shunts were placed in three locations in northwest Washington on Oct. 11, prompting emergency brakes to engage on a train that was hauling hazardous materials and flammable gas. The braking caused a bar connecting the train’s cars to fail; the cars became separated and could have derailed, authorities said.

CUSTER, WA – DECEMBER 22: A train carrying crude oil burns while derailed on December 22, 2020 in Custer, Washington. BNSF Railway Company released a statement saying the train was traveling north when seven tank cars derailed, resulting in a fire and evacuations of the area. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

Home to five oil refineries, Washington state sees millions of gallons of crude oil move by rail through the state each week, coming from North Dakota and Alberta.

The seven cars derailed at about 11:46 a.m. Tuesday. Two people were on board the 108-car train headed from North Dakota to the Ferndale Refinery, owned by Phillips 66.

Critics of oil transport by rail car said Tuesday’s incident was another example of the dangerousness of the practice. They cited the 2013 fiery derailment of a train carrying crude in Lac Megantic, Quebec, which killed 47 people.

The scene in the Custer area after a train derailed Tuesday morning. (Photo: Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office)

Washington state passed a law that imposed safety restrictions on oil shipments by rail, but it was blocked earlier this year by the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Transportation in May determined federal law preempts the Washington law adopted last year, which mandated crude from the oil fields of the Northern Plains have more of its volatile gases removed prior to being loaded onto rail cars.

Matt Krogh, director of U.S. Oil & Gas Campaigns for the environmental group Stand.earth, said it is difficult for state and local officials to place restrictions on shipments of oil by train.

“Our hands are tied in many ways because of federal pre-emption,” Krogh said.

Canadian oil trains, Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Fire, Lac-Mégantic, Oil trains, Tank car design, Tank car retrofit, TC-117

‘Significant industry interest’ in oil tank cars involved in latest fiery CP train crash, TSB says

These tank cars were touted as safer than those in the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

CBC News, by Guy Quenneville, Feb 14, 2020 12:15 PM CT

‘There is significant industry interest in documenting the performance of the DOT 117J100-W tank cars’ involved in the crash, the TSB says. (TSB)

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says it has not found any mechanical defects that could account for the derailment of a CP Rail oil train last week near the small Saskatchewan hamlet of Guerney — but it’s taking a close look at the tank cars involved in the incident.

The TSB issued a preliminary report on the Feb. 6 crash on Friday morning. None of the findings are final.

“A review of the locomotive event recorder download determined that the train was handled in accordance with regulatory and company requirements,” the TSB said in its preliminary update.

The finding about a lack of mechanical defects referred only to the train and did not refer to the track, a TSB spokesperson confirmed.

It also found that of the 32 tank cars that derailed, 19 were involved in the blaze that shut down the nearby highway and prompted the voluntary evacuation of about 85 people. It’s not clear how many, or if any, tanks lost their entire loads.

Transport Canada has touted the newly-built cars involved in last week’s crash, dubbed TC-117s, as being safer than the tanks used in the explosive Lac-Mégantic rail disaster of 2013.

Questions about ‘containment integrity and fire resistance’

Last week’s derailment was the second to happen near Guernsey in less than two months. A CP oil train crashed on the other side of Guernsey on Dec. 9, 2019, with 19 of the 33 derailed tank cars losing their entire loads of oil.

The tanks involved in that crash were retrofitted cars — TC-117Rs — which have a slightly less thick hull than the new TC-117s.

CP does not own the tank cars but rather leases them from a provider.

In its release about the most recent derailment, the TSB said there is “significant industry interest in documenting the performance of the [new TC-117] tank cars,” particularly in terms of “containment integrity and fire resistance.”

Investigators also found that of the 32 tank cars that derailed, 19 were involved in the blaze that shut down the nearby highway and prompted the voluntary evacuation of about 85 people. (TSB)

The fire from last week’s train crash burned for at least a day and a half.

The eastbound train, which was carrying diluted bitumen owned by ConocoPhillips, had left Rosyth, Alberta, and was headed for Stroud, Oklahoma. It derailed about 2.4 km west of Guernsey.

A Texas-based company called Trinity Rail previously confirmed to CBC News that it manufactured the tank cars involved in last Thursday’s crash and is “proactively monitoring the situation.”

While the TSB said the amount of oil released remains undetermined, the Saskatchewan government has said an estimated 1.2 million litres of oil spilled, citing CP as its source. That’s just short of the amount spilled in the December derailment.

Slower speed in 2nd crash

According to the TSB, the train that derailed in December was travelling at about 75 kilometres an hour, which is the speed limit on that section of CP’s line.

But last Thursday’s train was travelling more slowly, at around 67 kilometres an hour.

Three TSB investigators are probing the causes of the crash.

“Each tank car must be cleaned, purged, and staged prior to inspection,” the TSB said. “As of [Wednesday], about 17 of the derailed cars have been examined, with several cars exhibiting breaches.”

The train was carrying a total of 104 tank cars.

Sask. minister talks pipelines, rail safety

The two derailments have prompted many people to advocate for more pipelines.

In a news conference Friday about school bus safety and the blockades that have crippled Canada’s rail service, Saskatchewan’s minister of highways and infrastructure, Greg Ottenbreit, made a brief comment that touched on the topic of pipelines and railway safety.

“Saskatchewan is a landlocked province but Saskatchewan is also a gateway to the world,” he said. “And I think a lot of my fellow ministers can connect with those comments. We will continue to advocate for an uninhibited tidewater access, also pipeline access, which will lead to rail safety and capacity.”