... What's the news about the "huge" fuel storage facility fire this morning? Footage shows very large fireball.

... Made breaking news here, mentioned evacuation - 1 mile radius.

... Then all of the sudden, it's not mentioned any more in the next 1/2 hour, anywhere.

I live about 10 miles north of there.  I didn't hear anything, but I could see a large bright orange glow on the southern horizon this morning.  As far as I know, it is still burning.  It is down on FM563 about 2 miles from the liberty/chambers county line.  They were evacing people from a 1 mile radius around it this morning.  As far as I know, there are not many people living down there.  Things are pretty spread out.  
More as I hear it.

John

wow, i have not seen it on the news yet

Relax, it's just a pipeline fire at a salt dome.  If you want, after it cools off I will go down there and take some pics.  

Houston, we have a problem. Saw it on TV. Huge fireball/plume of steam.

Looks like the new sub-contractors were on the job early today.

i caught a little before my mornign shower...  had to take off cuz i was running late for work.

yeah its pretty toasty out here guys, i'll keep you informed

... Heck, I wake up this morning, and they said the fire had another explosion at the same site. This time evac radius is extended to three miles.

... Are these events "normal" daown there? The fireball/jet I saw on the news appeared to be shooting a few hundred feet in the air.

Here ya go: www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/2748195

There are several salt dome storage facilities out there owned by Duke, and scuttlebutt is that they overfilled the cavern. Unlike the Mount Belvieu area these salt dome wells have no extensive safety systems, which normally water down the vicinity should problems like this come up.

While amount of natural gas stored there is not something I can discuss, suffice to say info I got this am, which was from yesterday afternoon, indicated they'll let her burn out. Should take a week or more, unless Boots can figure out some alternative.

FYI, companies use salt domes for all kinds of petrochemical storage, they use seismic data to determine the density, size and depth of the formation. They then "wash" out caverns and use the voids for storage. There are many of them down here and in one case, Mount Belvieu, they actually moved the whole town inorder to provide a safe zone due the enormous amounts of stored product.

As a surveyor years ago I worked over there (Mount Belvieu) quite abit, in someplaces ya can't poke a rod in the ground without hitting a pipeline, not my favorite place to visit.

Mike

About 1:30 this morning,  I guess the wellhead blew off.  It went off with quite a bang.  It shook the house enough to wake me up.  I can now see the flames shooting up from the front door.  I can also hear it.  If you want to see it, take a drive up 146 between Mount Belview and Dayton.  

Quoted: Here ya go: www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory2/2748195 There are several salt dome storage facilities out there owned by Duke, and scuttlebutt is that they overfilled the cavern. Unlike the Mount Belvieu area these salt dome wells have no extensive safety systems, which normally water down the vicinity should problems like this come up. While amount of natural gas stored there is not something I can discuss, suffice to say info I got this am, which was from yesterday afternoon, indicated they'll let her burn out. Should take a week or more, unless Boots can figure out some alternative. FYI, companies use salt domes for all kinds of petrochemical storage, they use seismic data to determine the density, size and depth of the formation. They then "wash" out caverns and use the voids for storage. There are many of them down here and in one case, Mount Belvieu, they actually moved the whole town inorder to provide a safe zone due the enormous amounts of stored product. As a surveyor years ago I worked over there (Mount Belvieu) quite abit, in someplaces ya can't poke a rod in the ground without hitting a pipeline, not my favorite place to visit. Mike

The ABC News program stated this moring there was 16 BILLION pounds of natural gas in this system and it could burn for

EIGHT YEARS

if they cannot cap it.
The company I work for has a petrochemical product stored at the Mount Belview site and while extensive safety and inspection systems are in place,  something like this could get ugly fast.  They can of course pump out the natural gas from the cavern and shorten the flaring you presently  see, but if this gets out of hand, there could be some geological changes in this part of Texas.

Hope they can get this under control soon..........

Supposedly, the fire finally got down tot he christmas tree on the wellhead and melted it this morning.  result:  BOOOOM! and flames even higher than before.

There is no wellhead here as in normal "oil-wells", this is a salt dome storage facility.

The way these domes are set-up have those around here speculating that there will be very little B&C can do as the lack of normal wellhead configuration preclude the use of dynamite to shut it down. Then there is danger of actually fracturing the dome with a blast, causing the gas to vent all over, NOT a good thing to have happen, (this is dependent of course on how deep the top of that particular dome sets from ground level).  

Wish I could be more specific but as I work for Duke on occassion I'm bound by confidentiality issues. It has yet to be determined but the company I work for does do "accident investigative surveys", whether we'll have guys out there, who knows, but we have done plenty that made the news in the past, ie.. the NJ explosion that burned down all those apartment buildings years ago. (Cause by some mob connected yahoos buring, via back-hoe, items they were intending to report as stolen. Seems the back-hoe operator knew he damaged the pipeline, but covered it up, causing the later expolsion. They haul'd 3-40' tractor trailer loads of office equipment, cars, trucks and junk off that property which they had buried in that immediate area and reported stolen for insurance purposes....)  

As to the 16 Billion, that is total of capacity of the 3 domes/caverns total, the one burning does not affect the other two (hopefully).

Mike

Took a ride over to my mom's place in Anahuac yesterday and I could see this huge ball of fire and tremendous cloud of steam rising up from the site from I-10.  Quite impressive really.

Did they ever get this sorted and put out?

Not yet, it is still cooking away.  According to the news today, they are going to try and put it out this week.  I heard Boots and Coots will be doing the job.
The flare is quite a bit smaller than it was a couple of days ago.  On friday morning, I could see the flare from my front porch.  This morning, all I could see was a bright orange glow on the horizon.  

John

I saw it from an airplane about to land at Bush.  That is one big flame.
Dave

I drove to Lafayette this morning at 4:30.....

Damn thing is HUGE. You can see it for a long ways at night...it's high about the surrounding pine trees down by the Trinity.

Scary big!