LA PORTE, Texas — Crews are still battling a raging pipeline fire in the Deer Park area that started just before 10 Monday morning.
Four people, including a firefighter, were injured, according to the City of Deer Park. Two of them were taken to area hospitals.
The fire is burning near the Brookglen neighborhood at Spencer Highway near East Boulevard in La Porte. Hundreds of residents between Luella Dr. and Canada and Spencer Highway and Oakhaven/Eagle Run were advised to evacuate. Heritage Elementary and College Park Elementary were also evacuated, along with a nearby H-E-B and Walmart.
Firefighters were spraying nearby homes to try and protect them but smoke could be seen coming from some rooftops.
“The fire, it’s very hot, so a lot of the house structures that are adjacent to that are still catching on fire even though we’re putting a lot of water on them,” Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. said.
Brookglen resident Chandra Thom said she was getting ready for work when she heard a loud noise.
“I went out there and I looked and when I saw the fire, I got so scared. I have never been panicked like that before,” Thom said. “And then I start screaming and I run. I run through the front door and run down the street.”
She said the heat from the fire was intense.
“It was very hot, it felt like, I don’t know, like a big ball of fire coming close to you, like you’re standing in front of an oven,” Thom told us.
Other residents described a loud bang.
"I heard a big boom and felt the house shake. I ran out of my bedroom, everyone’s freaking out," Savanna Lee said. "I open the front door, there’s this fire and I see the fence is on fire. And I was like, 'We gotta go.'"
"You could see everything shaking in the house like rattling, you could hear it, sound like it was like a jet engine, it was a lot of pressure and force," Jennifer Young said. "He walked to the front door and when he opened it, he said, 'Oh my God, we gotta go.'"
We spoke with a man on East Meadow Drive whose back fence was already charred when he and his family evacuated.
“It’s just devastating to see this in the back of my yard," Abel told us. "Hopefully, my house stays intact. It's all materialistic stuff, it can be replaced. The only thing that can't be replaced is just memories and pets."
Abel was at work when the fire started but rushed home to help his wife and daughter get their three dogs out. He said a police officer had to break the back door open to help get the pets out. They had to leave a cat and some fish behind.
"Hopefully, the cat gets out," he said.
Evan Wyman was reunited with her dog, Baxter, at a shelter after officers went into her home to get him.
Heat from the pipeline fire ignited a grass fire near the neighborhood and a playground was destroyed.
It's unclear when the evacuees will be allowed to return home as they wait for the fire to burn itself out.
Nearby La Porte ISD schools and San Jacinto College Central Campus were sheltering in place before closing for the day.
Some power poles also caught fire and thousands of customers are without power. CenterPoint says over 4,000 customers are impacted. Emergency responders are helping an assisted living community that doesn't have power to keep them safe and more than a dozen residents there were evacuated, Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia said.
The Jimmy Burke Activity Center on 13th Street in Deer Park and City of La Porte Sports Center at 1302 Broadway are open for anyone who needs a place to go. The Faithbridge Church at 4711 Center Street in Deer Park is serving as a shelter. Evacuees with animals should contact the City of La Porte's Animal Shelter at 10901 Spencer Highway or 281-842-3700.
So far, no other neighborhoods have been advised to evacuate because the winds are calm and that's keeping the smoke from spreading.
"The smoke is just going straight up into the air, so from a weather perspective, there's no wind and there's also no inversion," KHOU 11 meteorologist Pat Cavlin explained. "Because the smoke is allowed to go straight up into the atmosphere and not hug the ground, this is not an immediate concern for surrounding neighborhoods, just the immediate area."
Harris County pollution control is monitoring the air quality.
Hazmat teams are also on the scene.
According to the Harris County Judge's Office, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. said the company that owns the pipeline is Energy Transfer and that it is a liquid natural gas line that is burning.
Spencer Highway is closed in both directions and so are nearby roads. Everyone should avoid the area.