On the evening of October 2, 2025, flames ripped through Chevron’s vast El Segundo refinery. Residents saw orange light bouncing off the clouds, heard a low thud, and read the same warning over and over: shelter in place. The fire burned for hours before crews got it under control. Officials said no one was hurt, but plumes of smoke and the smell of chemicals hung over the coastal breeze.1
Chevron’s facility is not just another industrial site—it’s California’s second-largest refinery, producing roughly one-fifth of Southern California’s gasoline and nearly 40 percent of LAX’s jet fuel.2 When a unit goes down here, prices ripple through the entire West Coast. Within days, jet-fuel traders reported spikes, and gasoline futures climbed. Once again, a single facility held millions of drivers and workers hostage.
This wasn’t a freak accident. It was another link in a long chain of failures that stretch from Texas to California—failures rooted in corporate cost-cutting, weak oversight, and the steady dismantling of watchdogs designed to protect the public.
According to local officials, the fire began in the jet-fuel hydro-treating unit just after 7 p.m. Chevron shut down nearby systems and vented gas to flares as a precaution. By dawn the next day, the fire was extinguished, but flaring continued intermittently for several days while crews stabilized operations.3 The company has not disclosed the root cause. City and county inspectors have opened reviews, but the public will likely wait months—if not years—for definitive answers.
That delay is typical. Chevron’s El Segundo plant has logged numerous violations over the years—from unpermitted flaring to worker-safety citations—and yet the company routinely negotiates settlements and resumes business as usual.4
The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) track hundreds of refinery and chemical-plant incidents every year. Between 2021 and 2023, advocacy coalitions identified more than 825 hazardous chemical releases or explosions nationwide—roughly one every day and a half.5 The EPA’s own Risk Management Program database lists thousands of facilities handling dangerous substances, many in or near population centers.6
California, despite tougher rules, is hardly immune. In 2025 alone, unplanned outages hit Marathon’s Martinez refinery and Valero’s Benicia plant, sending local prices soaring. Torrance and Richmond residents have lived through explosions, chemical leaks, and years of respiratory illness that followed. These are not isolated events—they are features of an industry running on the edge of failure.
The West Coast’s fuel system—known as PADD 5—is structurally tight. It’s cut off from the Gulf Coast pipeline network, relies on a handful of large refineries, and uses a special California-blend gasoline that few plants can make. When one of those facilities falters, prices jump.7
Economists estimate that the El Segundo shutdown could add 5 to 15 cents per gallon to retail prices across Los Angeles County, with a larger short-term hit to jet fuel.8 The pattern is familiar: refinery outages in 2023 and 2024 pushed California’s average pump prices up compared with the national average.9
Because refining capacity has declined, every accident now carries outsize weight. The state’s petroleum watchdog warned earlier this year that “even minor disruptions can trigger substantial volatility.”10
For the people who live near these facilities, price swings are the least of their worries. Studies consistently show that communities within three miles of refineries suffer higher rates of asthma, heart disease, and certain cancers.11, 12 Flaring releases fine particulates, volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals. Even short-term exposure can trigger headaches, nosebleeds, and lung irritation. Long-term exposure corrodes lives.
Roughly 6.1 million Americans live within three miles of a refinery—and they are disproportionately low-income and people of color.13 In Wilmington, just 15 miles south of El Segundo, residents have documented clusters of asthma, autoimmune disease, and mental-health stress tied to constant emissions and the fear of accidents.14
After the Chevron blaze, local clinics in the South Bay reported spikes in asthma flare-ups and coughing fits. Residents described a metallic taste in the air. Most lacked access to real-time air-quality data because the region’s monitors sit miles away. That silence is policy: companies self-report emissions, and the data often appear months late—if at all.
Just as these dangers escalate, Washington is moving to eliminate the only federal agency dedicated to investigating such disasters. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) was created after a series of deadly industrial explosions to conduct independent root-cause investigations and issue safety recommendations. Its work has led to stronger refinery-safety standards and saved lives.
Yet the administration’s FY 2026 budget zeros out the CSB and orders it to begin winding down this fiscal year.15 Leading safety organizations have condemned the move, warning that without the CSB “the nation loses its only independent source of accident lessons.”16 Chemistry World reports that closure planning is already underway.17
The timing is surreal. Industry incidents remain frequent; the EPA has strengthened its “Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention” rule; and communities are demanding more transparency, not less. Dismantling the CSB means fewer investigations, fewer public reports, and more space for corporate spin.
Every refinery accident extracts three kinds of payment:
Economists at the U.S. EPA estimate that industrial chemical accidents impose billions in external costs each year—from property damage to medical bills and missed workdays.18 Those costs rarely show up on corporate balance sheets.
The burden is heaviest on communities least able to absorb it. Many residents near El Segundo, Wilmington, and Richmond work hourly jobs and lack paid sick leave. When refineries flare, they keep working—breathing in the fumes they can’t afford to escape.
In the wake of every disaster, Chevron and its peers issue the same script: commitment to safety, community partnership, and “resilience.” What they don’t mention is their lobbying to weaken environmental rules and slash watchdog budgets. It’s textbook greenwashing—projecting responsibility while quietly dismantling it.
Real protection looks different:
The fire over El Segundo was visible for miles, but its meaning stretches far beyond Los Angeles. It exposed the fragility of America’s fossil-fuel infrastructure and the fragility of the communities forced to live beside it. Each incident repeats the same truth: the system isn’t breaking down—it’s working exactly as designed, for those who profit from it.
Real resilience will come only when we stop treating explosions as normal business costs and start valuing clean air, honest oversight, and the lives lived in the refinery’s shadow.