The Silver Eagle refinery in Woods Cross where a fire Monday injured four workers had been cited for 13 serious safety violations in recent years, including one that was deemed by inspectors to put workers at a high level of risk, according to officials with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The four men injured in the fire remained hospitalized Tuesday night at University Hospital. Robert Benoit, Alex Bloomfield and Phillip McSwain were listed in serious condition, and Timothy Harter was listed in critical condition.
According to the OSHA Web site, the refinery was cited for 10 "serious" violations in 2005, two "serious" violations in 2004, and one in 2002. One of the 2005 violations was assigned a "gravity" rating of 10, meaning it carried the highest possible risk to workers' safety.
The violation concerned "process safety management of hazardous chemicals," and OSHA initially assigned a penalty of $3,000. The issue was informally settled in March 2007, with the company paying a fine of $2,000, OSHA said.
OHSA records indicated that since April 2002, the facility has been cited for 23 violations overall.
The safety citations were issued locally by the Utah Occupational Safety and Health Division, which is responsible for inspections of facilities like Silver Eagle and other Utah refineries, said the division's operations manager, Bill Adams.
Division investigators are working to determine the cause of the blaze, and Adams said he could not comment on whether any safety citations would be issues or penalties would be assessed until the probe is completed.
"This out here is what is referred to as a catastrophe," he said. "The area was evacuated. Four people went to the hospital."
Krege Christensen, vice president of finance and legal affairs for Silver Eagle Refining Inc., said the company would not comment specifically on the previous violations. But he said that sometimes violations occur despite a company's best efforts.
"If there is a violation, we try to comply with OSHA, or we pay a penalty," he said.
The company has worked to make safety the highest priority at the refinery and hired a full-time safety expert in 2008, he said.
Silver Eagle is the smallest refinery in Utah and sells the gasoline and diesel it produces to "jobbers," or middlemen, in the fuel industry who then distribute the fuel to gas stations. The company employs about 50 people at its Davis County facility and about 25 at its Evanston, Wyo., operation, Christensen said. He declined to name the company's clients.
Prior to Monday's blaze, there had been four other fires reported at the Woods Cross refinery since 2003.
On Aug. 15, 2007, a four-man crew cut off a pipeline that feeds the refinery's distillation unit after it caught fire. The contents of the unit burned out within an hour. No one was injured.
On May 6, 2007, a furnace exploded and caught fire, sending a huge plume of black smoke into the air. No one was injured and no homes were evacuated.
In 2005, a fire erupted when a tube carrying hydrogen and diesel fuel ruptured inside a furnace at the refinery. The fire burned for a half hour. No one was injured.
In 2003, asphalt inside a tank exploded and caught fire, again sending a plume of black smoke into the air and causing about $100,000 damage. No one was injured.
Adams said that because no one was injured in those previous incidents, his division was not notified.
"They are required to call us within eight hours if there is a serious injury or there was a fatality," he said.
A team from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency, planned to arrive Wednesday to ask about the previous fires.
"We seek to understand why these accidents occur," agency spokesman Daniel Horowitz said. "We also look at the safety culture of the corporation."
The South Davis Metro Fire Agency said Monday's blaze at Silver Eagle was extinguished about 4 a.m. Tuesday, after more than 80 firefighters worked through the night to put it out. An explosion at the refinery occurred about 5:30 p.m. Monday, injuring the four men and sending flames high into the sky. Residents within a half-mile of the refinery were ordered to evacuate to nearby Woods Cross High School. About 100 homes were affected.
"Our concerns were the tank failing or the tanks next to it getting too hot and catching on fire," said Jeff Bassett, deputy fire chief.
Christensen said the explosion appeared to have been caused by fumes escaping from a storage tank's vents. Because the fumes venting from the top of the 13,500-barrel tank were heavier than air, they spread along the ground and across a parking lot, where a furnace inside a small building is believed to have ignited the vapor, he said.
The flames traveled back to the tank, burning off gasoline vapor from the vents. Eventually, firefighters were able to inject foam down the same vents, putting the fire out.
Before the explosion, workers had purged some of the lines connecting the tank, which holds partly refined gasoline. That work is believed to have forced vapors to escape from the tank's vents, and the vapors could have been concentrated enough to catch fire, Christensen said.
In a statement Tuesday, refinery manager Kerry B. Carroll said Bloomfield and McSwain are Silver Eagle employees, and Harter and Benoit worked for Elite Insulation. McSwain, who runs Silver Eagle's refining lab, is a brother of company president Dave McSwain, according to Christensen.
"All four individuals sustained second- and third-degree burns to their upper extremities," Carroll said.
A full investigation into the cause of the fire could take the South Davis Metro Fire Agency a week to complete.
Contributing: Paul Foy, Associated Press; Ben Winslow
E-mail: jlee@desnews.com