Chevron Corp.'s (CVX) El Segundo refinery in southern California suffered a power outage to some units, leading to extreme flaring that included high flames and thick black smoke, a city fire official said Monday.

Breck Slover, battalion chief with the El Segundo Fire Department, said by telephone that the refinery had some type of power loss within the plant. And since the refinery has different types of oil products running through the pipes at certain temperatures, Chevron diverted that product to the so-called flare stacks in a controlled burnoff to avoid an over-pressure situation, he said.

While such controlled burnoffs are common at refineries, Mr. Slover said of Monday's incident that he has been in El Segundo for more than three decades, "and I haven't seen [flaring] that big in a long time."

He said there is no immediate danger to the community related to the flaring, and that the fire department will remain on alert when the refinery begins a restart after the outage.

Representatives from Chevron weren't immediately available.

The 270,000-barrel-a-day El Segundo refinery, located among the beach communities south of Los Angeles, is the largest-producing oil refinery on the west coast, according to Chevron's website.

Write to Dan Molinski at dan.molinski@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 17, 2018 12:54 ET (16:54 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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