HOUSTON (AP) - Crews on Wednesday extinguished a fire that burned for days at a Houston-area petrochemicals storage facility and began cleaning up the site.
International Terminals Company spokeswoman Alice Richardson said at a news conference that the cleanup efforts will allow workers to reach the site and begin the investigation into what caused the blaze.
Crews will continue spraying foam and water on tanks that caught fire to cool them down and prevent the blaze from reigniting, Richardson said. The tanks contained components of gasoline and materials used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner.
The fire in Deer Park was extinguished at 3 a.m. Wednesday. It began Sunday at the facility southeast of Houston, sending a huge, dark plume of smoke thousands of feet in the air.
Adam Adams, an official with the Environmental Protection Agency, said testing shows the air quality remains safe. Officials said Tuesday that the smoke was reaching at least 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) up and staying high enough so that the air quality at ground level was safe.
Company officials earlier had said that eight tanks caught fire while seven other tanks in the same section of the storage facility did not.
"Of course ITC is very sorry," Richardson said during a news conference Tuesday. "This isn't an event we wanted."