Five workers were injured in a fire that broke out around 10:15 Friday morning at an Encana facility in the Jonah Field near Pinedale.
“We do know that some welding work was being conducted on some condensate tanks," company spokesperson Doug Hock says. "This was a battery of half a dozen tanks. However, the exact reason for the fire is not known at this time.”
All five injured workers were contractors. Hayley McKee, a spokesperson for the Wyoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration says three were working for Boulder, WY-based ASAP Construction, and that the other two were contract welders.
One of the workers was airlifted directly from the site for further medical care, the other four were transported to local hospitals. Their names and conditions aren’t being released.
The fire burned for almost three hours before local emergency responders and Encana personnel were able to put it out.
Encana's Hock says five of the six condensate tanks were destroyed.
“But at this point it doesn’t appear that there is any severe environmental impact, because the fire consumed anything that would have spilled,” he says.
Non-essential operations at the facility have been shut down pending an investigation by OSHA.
A nearby rig wasn’t impacted.