Explosion Shakes Homes As Fire Erupts At Refinery

Krege Christensen, a Silver Eagle vice president, said his company believed a utility outage Wednesday led to trouble at multiple refineries, but Rocky Mountain Power said it didn't cause the problem.

Utility spokesman Dave Eskelsen said the explosion at Silver Eagle briefly knocked out a 46,000-volt transmission line, leading to emergency measures at that refinery and two others.

Parry, the Woods Cross mayor, said the company has offered to put up displaced families in local hotels.

On Jan. 12, four people were seriously burned at Silver Eagle when a 440,000 gallon storage tank caught fire and burned for 11 hours. Federal investigators said the ignition source may have been a gas heater or a refrigerator's electric outlet in a utility shed about 160 feet from the tank.

The worst accident in recent years killed 15 workers at a BP PLC refinery in Texas City in 2005. On Friday, OSHA levied a record $87 million fine against the oil giant for that accident.

That refinery had gone without a comprehensive inspection for a decade, and OSHA did only a handful of such inspections during the same period for approximately 150 U.S. refineries, according to Holmstrom.

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