El Segundo Refinery Fire:
An Accident Waiting to Happen

Dec 8, 2025

On October 2, 2025, a massive explosion and fire destroyed sections of Chevron’s El Segundo refinery, located southwest of Los Angeles. The fire was visible and heard for miles across the South Bay for more than 30 minutes. It took nine hours to bring the fire under control, as it spewed cancer-causing chemicals into the air, polluting the surrounding densely packed communities.

This is not the first major fire at this refinery. Explosions and fires in 1989, 1999, and 2012, along with many incidents before, in between, and after, have afflicted this refinery on multiple occasions.

One expert, Andrew Lipow, president of Houston-based consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates, said that in his experience, “refinery fires can often be traced to equipment failures, especially those that lead to a situation that allows hot oil and gas to reach the atmosphere. It finds an ignition source, and a fire results.”

Chevron’s El Segundo refinery was built more than 100 years ago, in 1911. All major refineries in the U.S. are more than half a century old. The last significant new refinery, Marathon Oil’s facility in Louisiana, was constructed in 1977. And much of the current equipment is old and worn out.

So, although oil companies like Chevron make tens of billions of dollars in profit each year, they still cut corners by choosing not to modernize, upgrade, or maintain their equipment. They continue to use old, corroded equipment to increase their profits further and enrich their owners. This recent fire was an accident waiting to happen.

The El Segundo refinery is crucial to California’s fuel supply, providing approximately 20% of Southern California’s gasoline and over 40% of its jet fuel. This fire destroyed the refinery’s jet fuel unit.

As a result of refinery closures and accidents, gasoline prices in Southern California, already among the highest in the U.S., are expected to increase by 10 to 25 cents per gallon. So, mostly the workers’ already meager income in this expensive state will be hit with these high prices.

Workers pay with high prices, if not with our lives, for such disasters that result from deliberate neglect.