July 6, 2006
CORPUS CHRISTI – After hours of waiting, a Citgo refinery fire finally burned itself out early Friday morning. Refinery Terminal Company firefighters responded to the fire around 8:00 Thursday night.
It was located high atop one of those towering pipelines. The fire was so high that they had to modify their equipment just to reach the flames. A Citgo spokesman said a piece of equipment malfunctioned and allowed superheated hydrogen and nafta gases to come in direct contact with the outside air, which started the fire.
Nafta is a petroleum by-product. Eventually, all the hydrogen in the pipeline was consumed and the fire burned itself out.