RENTON, Wash. (AP) -- A small section of a gasoline pipeline exploded and caught fire in a wetlands area, disrupting fuel deliveries but without the fatal consequences of a much larger blast in 1999.
Olympic Pipe Line Co. personnel heard an explosion and saw a flash from the northwest corner of their office in this Seattle suburb at 8:08 a.m. Sunday, then saw flames shooting to 20 feet, according to a company statement and witness reports.
No evacuations were ordered and about 50 firefighters had the fire out by 11 a.m., Fire Capt. Bob Deines said
A leak in a three-quarter-inch stainless steel test line coming off the pipeline was capped around 3:45 p.m., but a second, slower leak continued trickling fuel until it was stopped about two hours later, Olympic officials said.
Lind Avenue Southwest, an arterial street near the spill, was closed between Southwest 19th and 27th streets as a precaution.
Three firefighters who got splashed with fuel were treated on site, then taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for observation, Deines said.
The amount of fuel that leaked and the time required to clean the spill had not determined as of late Sunday night, officials said.
Following the explosion officials shut down the 400-mile system, which carries about 12 million gallons of gas, diesel and jet fuel a day from refineries at Cherry Point, north of Bellingham, and March Point, near Anacortes, as far south as Portland, Ore.
Three people died in April 1999 after a much larger part of the Olympic pipeline ruptured in Bellingham, releasing nearly 237,000 gallons of gasoline that exploded into a fireball along Whatcom Creek.
Shell Oil Co., one of the pipeline owners, agreed to pay $250,000 of a $3 million fine proposed by the U.S. Office of Pipeline Safety and the rest of the fine is being negotiated with Olympic. A wrongful death suit filed by two families was settled for $75 million. Last year Olympic filed for reorganization in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding.
The pipeline, the main supplier of fuel for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, will remain shut down until state and federal investigators determine the cause of the leaks that occurred Sunday and decide that the line is safe, Olympic spokeswoman Lee Keller said.
Investigators from the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Ecology were assessing the impact on air and water quality.
