A catastrophe was averted this morning in the Orange Walk District when a fire at a crude oil refinery was contained. At around 10:00, smoke was seen billowing from the camp five area of Shipyard - which is a Mennonite community. That's the location of a primitive crude oil refinery, which buys oil from BNE and converts it into diesel fuel suitable for use in heavy equipment.
But today, there was a short on one of the electrical switches, and that ignited a fire in a tank with 300 gallons of crude. The problem is that it was right beside three more tanks with Diesel. Fortunately, through the joint effort of workers and the Orange Walk Fire Department, it was contained to the single tank, which burned for about two hours before it subsided. No one was harmed.
A fire truck was deployed from Belize City was well but in the end it was not needed. Fire teams were assisted by the ready availability of an open source of water.
The Orange Walk Fire Department has determined that a faulty electrical switch caused the fire.
The refinery is one of a handful in the country which uses primitive means to convert light sweet crude from the Spanish Lookout oil field into low grade diesel fuel.
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