5 Killed, 2 Injured In Anacortes Refinery Explosion

An Anacortes refinery explosion that killed five workers and critically injured two others shook houses, woke up people miles away and sent flames shooting into the night sky early Friday morning.

The Skagit County coroner identified the three people who were killed at the scene. Coroner Daniel Dempsey said they were 31-year-old Matthew C. Bowen of Arlington, 43-year-old Darrin J. Hoines of Ferndale and 50-year-old Daniel J. Aldridge of Anacortes. A fourth victim, 29-year-old Kathryn Powell, died of her burns at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she and three other workers were taken after the fire.

Late Friday night, Tesoro spokesman Lynn Westfall confirmed that the fifth victim, 36 year old Donna Van Dreumel passed away at Harborview.

She had been employed with Tesoro since 2001.

The two hospitalized workers suffered major burns over the majority of the bodies, said Susan Gregg-Hanson, a hospital representative. She said they are two men, ages 34 and 41.

The fire erupted in the so-called naphtha unit of the complex at about 12:30 a.m., and it was put out by the refinery's emergency crews, Tesoro Refinery Human Resources Manager John McDarment told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

Employees were doing maintenance work on the naphtha unit, which processes highly flammable liquid derived during the refining process, the company said.

Six investigators with the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board were dispatched to the scene, and the Washington Department of Labor and Industries launched an investigation.

The agency fined the San Antonio-based company $85,700 last April for 17 serious safety and health violations, defined as those with potential to cause death or serious physical injury.

Inspectors found 150 instances of deficiencies and said the company didn't ensure safe work practices and failed to update safety information when changes were made to equipment.

In November, the state reached a settlement with Tesoro, requiring in part that the company correct the hazards and hire a third-party consultant to do a safety audit.

"We don't know if any of those hazards were involved in the incident that happened today," said Hector Castro, spokesman for the state labor department.

Jeff Haffner, associate general counsel for Tesoro, said the third-party audit was completed in the past few weeks, but the consulting firm hired had not yet issued its report.

Most of the items involved requirements for managing safety, he said.

"There's no way for us to know whether the subject matter of any of those items were related, if at all, to this incident, because we don't know what caused the incident," Haffner said.

The company is conducting its own investigation into the fire, he said.

The blast occurred in a unit that was in the dangerous process of returning to operation, turning up heat and pressure, said Tesoro spokesman Greg Wright.

Company officials said they don't know how the fire started.

"We had a fire, but we certainly don't know the source of it at this time," said Lynn D. Westfall, Senior Vice President of Tesoro, at a news conference Friday afternoon.

Residents across Anacortes reported hearing the explosion, followed by lots of flames and smoke.

"I looked out the window and I saw a ball of flame, about a thousand feet in the air, maybe five hundred feet, but it was huge,” said nearby resident Dennis Veil.

"I saw a fireball, and black smoke that was twice as high as the Space Needle," said Rob Jensen, a witness.

One resident told KIRO 7 he heard a loud explosion that shook his house about two miles away. Another said he saw a large fire in the center of the complex being blown by high winds. Loud sirens sounded that could be heard all across town.

"All I could think of was no one could have survived that kind of a blast if they were anywhere near it," said Jan Taylor who lives across Fidalgo Bay.

Anacortes resident Travis Murrieta said he saw an ambulance speeding away from the refinery complex. At about 2 a.m., he saw a medical helicopter landing at the Anacortes hospital. It took off for Seattle about 45 minutes later.

Activity around the complex had calmed down considerably by about 3 a.m. Guards were turning reporters away from the gate and there was no apparent sign of the fire that had lit up the skies just 2 1/2 hours earlier.

At least three of the refinery's smokestacks were in operation, but many others were inactive.

The refinery, located about 70 miles north of Seattle on Puget Sound, can refine about 120,000 barrels of crude daily, primarily into gasoline, jet fuel and diesel to markets in Washington and Oregon, according to the company.

The Anacortes operation is one of seven the independent company operates in western states.