Deer park fire: Benzene in Texas city's air briefly forces everyone inside

Officials in the city, Deer Park, which is about 20 miles east of Houston, lifted the latest shelter-in-place order at 11:40 a.m., about seven hours after putting it in place. The order had been prompted by the levels of benzene in the air.

In a statement, emergency services and public health officials said that air quality readings in the area had improved for a sustained period of time, allowing the city to lift the order.

“Air quality readings are improving, and over the last few hours, they have been significantly reduced,” said Robert Hemminger, the city’s emergency services director. “This information, combined with the assurance of Harris County Public Health, allows us to meet our internal criteria necessary to lift our shelter-in-place.”

Officials said they would continue to monitor the air quality even after the shelter order was lifted. And Thursday afternoon, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in a statement that it would begin an investigation into the blaze next week.

The blaze began Sunday when a storage tank caught fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Co.'s facility there, the city said. The city issued the first of two shelter-in-place orders that afternoon, but lifted the order by the next morning after officials received word that air quality readings had not “exceeded action levels.”

Several fire departments fought the blaze throughout the week to prevent it from spreading and extinguished it by early Wednesday, officials said. Throughout Wednesday, local and federal officials had assured the public that air-quality readings were “well below hazardous levels” and that there “was no potential threat” posed by elevated levels of benzene in the air.

Early Thursday, officials issued the second shelter-in-place order around 5 a.m. after what they said was a benzene leak at the storage facility where the fire occurred. The Deer Park Fire Department posted a statement from Judge Lina Hidalgo of Harris County, who said that air quality readings in the area had crossed “our very conservative” standards and that officials were again telling residents to take shelter “out of an abundance of caution.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.