Page 11 - Con Fire News Today

Out to be two tanks under control. i had incorrectly shared with you last hour that there were three tanks. there are only two tanks burning, there are three tanks that are, what we say, impinged, threatened by the heat and fire from the two that are burning. the two tanks that are burning both contain ethanol, an additive for gasoline. they contained about 250,000 gallons between them of ethanol. the tanks that are tlhreatened, they contain jet fuel and another tank of ethanol. a correction fro...

One is we have a blanket of firefighting foam over the top of the collapsed tank and so the idea behind that is to keep oxygen from the fire, deny the fire oxygen. so whats happening is youre seeing these flare ups because were getting breaks in that foam blanket. the heated fuel is being exposed to air and thats creating a situation where it flares up. thats what youre seeing there. one tank is all but completely collapsed so that one leaked into the containment area which is basically earthen ...

Firefighting is a risky business. we do our best to strike a balance. tis is a defensive fire, but theres certainly large implications for the potential for a fire like this. we have to figure that mix, the risk picture, if you will. we have firefighters down there. you can probably see them behind me putting water on those tanks to cool them that arent burning and continuing to attack the fires that are burning. it is a risky situation, but weve done our best to calculate that and to keep our f...

That fire. i imagine weve probably changed some of them out over the couple firefighters on those ed, but fires from the beginning. >> could you tell us more about those three other tanks that you say are threatened. >> yes. >> what do they have and when you say threatened, could you elaborate, please? >> they are tanks filled with varying amounts of flammable materials. they either have ethanol, like the two that are burning, which burns pretty well, or jet fuel. our concern is we keep those co...

Warranted. does that work for you guys? >> sure. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. that was great. >> thank you. >> if anybody wants information on the road stuff -- >> steve hill updating everyone on where we are at this moment. they are still concerned about hot spots. the larger part of the fire is out, but he gave a great explanation of what theyre doing with the foam that looks like its been snowing on these two tanks that caught fire. they are trying to make sure there are no hot spots...

Now that has resulted in this fire thats now 3:35 into this. still very much an active scene and could go on for quite some time. they did manage to put out the fire on the hillside near the facility in crockett. but the tanks themselves are still burning. there were three tanks involved. two were basically heempty. the third one had about 160,000 gallons. >> we should let you know a news conference is about to happen any moment now. were keeping our eye on that. on the right side of your screen...

Few minutes which should be an encouraging sign. we anticipate literally any moment now to get an update from officials at the scene. >> if you take a look at the aerial, wider perspective on the left, it tells a similar story. certainly not even much smoke to be seen in that shot. although, you can see the carquinez bridge really well in that shot as well. you can see no traffic going by. you see the hell cop tefr, a lot of helicopter runs dropping retardant over the last couple hours. right no...

>> we just saw one right now. abc 7 news at 6:00 begins now. >> now from abc 7, live breaking news. whats happened is we have at least two tanks releasing chemicals that are burning. >> thick black smoke fills the air in the east bay as something causes a fire to break out at a tank farm. people have been told to stay indoors. >> calls started coming in around 2:00 of an explosion and fire at the new star refinery. interstate 80 which runs next to the refinery was shut down. >> health offici...

Fire. nustar, at least these tanks contain ethanol. this is a huge company that deals with a lot of different chemicals and gasoline and oil around the country. our melanie woodrow reported they have 74 facilities. a fairly large company. this facility at this moment they were storing ethanol in these tanks. were not sure what else, if anything else, because some of the ethanol burns carbon dioxide. we dont know what else may have been burning and going into the air. >> brand new information com...

All these facilities have their o firefighting efforts before calling city and county which then race to the scene as well. youre looking at the left side of your screen. i-80 will be closed until at least 11:30 in both directions from highway 4 to the carquinez bridge. thats a big area that will be out of commission for commuters all night tonight. >> in fact, were looking at a stretch of freeway where theyre diverting traffic off of i-80. you can get on 4, but cant get on i-80 towards the scen...