Raging gasoline fire perils refinery tanks

PHILADELPHIA — A gasoline fire raging out of control threatened to engulf a tank farm at an oil refinery on the outskirts of the city, fire officials said Monday. Winds of up to 15 m.p.h.

fanned the flames, and balls of fire rolled up into a thick, black column of smoke that could be seen 10 miles away. “We’re having a terrible time,” Fire Commissioner William Richmond said.

“It’s hairy.” An eighth alarm was sounded Monday afternoon at the Chevron oil refinery. A 4-million-gallon tank, about one-quarter full, caught fire late Sunday when it was struck by

lightning. “We are holding our own,” Richmond said. “But if the walls of the tank collapse, it will dump a lot of burning gasoline.” An earthen dike surrounds the tank, but two other tanks

and a section of pipeline also were inside the earthworks, Richmond said. “In a worst-case scenario, this whole block could go,” he said. About 25 huge tanks are clustered in the tank farm.

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