- Explorer said operations into and out of Glenpool were shut down Monday, while its operations outside the Oklahoma hub continued.
- The fire involved three tanks containing natural gasoline—not liquefied natural gas—and no injuries were reported.
- Cleanup and air monitoring continued Tuesday; restart timing, product loss, damage and downstream supply effects remained undisclosed.
Explorer Pipeline halted operations into and out of its Glenpool, Oklahoma, facility after a fire involving three natural gasoline storage tanks on Monday, August 17. The Explorer Pipeline fire followed what the company described as a suspected lightning strike; no injuries were reported, and responders eliminated the visible flames and smoke plume Monday night.
Bloomberg reported Monday afternoon, citing Explorer, that movements into and out of Glenpool had been shut down while the company’s operations outside Glenpool continued. No public restart time had been announced as of Tuesday afternoon.
The shutdown confirms a site-level interruption within a refined-products network linking Gulf Coast supply with Oklahoma and Midwestern markets. Tank Transport previously documented how Explorer Pipeline helped move additional Gulf Coast barrels north during earlier refinery outages. That makes Glenpool’s status important to fuel logistics, but it does not establish a downstream truck-rack outage, tanker shortage, or regional fuel shortage.
Fire Spreads Across Three Storage Tanks
Storage tanks burned at the Gulf refinery near Cataño, Puerto Rico, in October 2009. This historical image documents a separate incident and does not show Explorer Pipeline’s Glenpool facility. (Photo: Yuisa Ríos/FEMA, public domain)
Emergency crews responded near U.S. Highway 75 and West 126th Street at about 8:30 a.m. Monday. Explorer initially said lightning struck a tank; CEO Mark Hurley later said conditions strongly suggested lightning. The cause should remain preliminary until the company or an investigating agency issues a final finding.
According to the updated local incident account, the fire started in one tank and spread to two others at a site that company officials said contains 31 tanks. Responders used foam, cooled the area and monitored for hot spots. At an 8:30 p.m. briefing, officials said the fire was no longer actively burning and that no visible flames or smoke plume remained.
The absence of reported injuries is a major positive outcome. It does not yet answer how badly the three tanks were damaged, how much product was consumed or released, or how long inspection, isolation and repair work will take.
Natural Gasoline Is Not LNG
Several early reports mislabeled the stored product as liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Explorer’s own update identified it as natural gasoline, a liquid petroleum product also known as pentanes plus.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration says natural gasoline can be blended into motor fuels, used to denature fuel ethanol, and used as a diluent for heavy crude. Explorer separately lists natural gasoline/diluent under UN 1203 in its safety materials.
Firefighters work to extinguish jet-fuel storage-tank fires at Apra Harbor, Guam, after Super Typhoon Pongsona in December 2002. This historical image documents a separate incident and does not show Explorer Pipeline’s Glenpool facility. (Photo: Andrea Booher/FEMA, public domain)
It is therefore inaccurate to describe the event as an LNG tank fire. LNG is a cryogenic methane product; natural gasoline is a flammable liquid petroleum blendstock. The distinction matters for product identification, emergency response, and any later assessment of lost inventory or environmental effects.
Glenpool Shutdown Leaves Key Effects Undisclosed
Oklahoma environmental permit records identify the property as the Glenpool Pipeline Breakout Station. Federal pipeline rules define breakout tanks as tanks used to relieve pipeline surges or to receive and store hazardous liquid for reinjection and continued pipeline transportation. That function should not be confused with a confirmed highway cargo-tank loading rack at the affected site.
| Verified through August 18 | Not publicly disclosed through August 18 |
|---|---|
| Three tanks held natural gasoline; the fire began in one tank and spread to two others. | Tank identifiers, capacities, initial contents, and the amount burned or released. |
| No injuries were reported; visible flames and the smoke plume were eliminated Monday night. | Structural damage, inspection findings, repair scope and return-to-service timing. |
| The response shifted to cleanup, wastewater removal and continued air monitoring Tuesday. | Final sampling results, reportable release quantities and any soil or surface-water effects. |
| Explorer said Glenpool movements were shut Monday while operations outside Glenpool continued. | Restart timing, batch delays, customer nominations, downstream terminal availability or truck-rack effects. |
By Tuesday, the Glenpool Fire Department had moved into a supporting role, while Williams Fire and Hazard Control and U.S. Fire Pump led the on-site cleanup. Officials said firefighting wastewater was being removed and air monitoring would continue, with Explorer coordinating monitoring with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Wastewater removal does not, by itself, prove off-site contamination.
If the shutdown persists, the first useful downstream indicators will be changes in pipeline nominations, terminal availability, rack basis, loading windows and alternate sourcing—the terminal-level fuel-supply conditions that broad inventory totals can miss. None had been publicly quantified for this event by Tuesday afternoon.
Tank Transport’s coverage of the Valero Port Arthur refinery blast illustrates why extinguishment, equipment inspection, restart and normal commercial operations should be treated as separate stages. Glenpool is a pipeline breakout station rather than a refinery, but the same reporting discipline applies.
A storage tank at the Enbridge tank farm in Cushing, Oklahoma, photographed in April 2010. This representative image does not show Explorer Pipeline’s Glenpool facility. (Photo: roy.luck/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Explorer Pipeline Fire: Key Developments
- Explorer said a lightning strike was strongly suspected, but no final cause determination was made public Tuesday.
- The fire involved three natural gas tanks—not LNG—and officials said the site contains 31 tanks.
- Officials reported no injuries and said the fire was no longer actively burning by Monday night.
- Glenpool movements were shut down Monday, but restart timing and downstream terminal or tanker effects were not disclosed.
- Cleanup, wastewater removal, and air monitoring continued Tuesday while product loss and environmental effects remained unquantified.
