Ruptured line blamed for explosion at refinery

Team coverageCrews are making repairs today to an oil refinery in Woods Cross after last night's explosion. The blast sent a shock wave through neighborhoods in Davis County.

The Holly Refinery is up and running today, except for that section where the explosion happened last night. The explosion was caused by a ruptured pressure line which ignited. It took crews until the middle of the night to get the situation safely under control.

South Davis Metro Fire and the Farmington Fire Department responded quickly, but the flames were still huge. Home video taken by a neighbor of the Holly Refinery gives you an idea of the explosion and blast that was felt around the oil refinery.

Nearby resident Matt Naylor said, "It looked like a fireball, just a huge fireball going through the sky, and at that point I was worried the whole refinery would keep going."

Many neighbors left their homes voluntarily, concerned about the danger of another explosion. "The fire looked like a hundred feet high just coming from the refinery, so I thought maybe the whole thing was going to blow up. The whole neighborhood, everybody was scrambling, getting in their cars, trying to get out of here," said Naylor.

Ross Jorgensen, also a resident in the area, said, "All the sudden, the house just shook. We thought for a second it was an earthquake. Then we stood up and knew it was the refinery, looked out and saw some big flames back there."

Residents were also confused because the Holly alarm sounded. It normally rings once a week, but only for tests. "Then the alarm went off, the major alarm they have. It goes off every Friday at noon, so as soon as we heard it, we knew there was a problem," Naylor said.

The refinery blames the explosion on a leaking pipe, which crews had discovered earlier in the day and were about to make repairs to it when it ignited.

The leading theory is that two power outages in recent days, which shut down the refinery, may have weakened the line. "The last week or so hasn't really been a good one for us. These kind of events don't happen very often, and we've had three now in the last week and a half," said spokesman Mike Astin.

He says those fluctuations could have had an effect on weakening the line.

The explosion was contained to the hydrofluoric acid unit, and repairs will take another couple of days.

And with gas prices very volatile right now, the refinery is downplaying that the explosion will have any effect on us at the gas pumps. Astin said, "I would be extremely surprised if this event had any impact on gas prices whatsoever."

A test overnight showed no dangerous levels of vapors in the air.

A subcontractor across the street who was startled by the blast suffered minor injuries.

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