LIVE COVERAGE: Large pipeline fire near Spencer Highway in La Porte area

LA PORTE, Texas — Crews are battling a massive fire at a pipeline in the Deer Park area on Monday, according to the Office of Emergency Management.

According to the City of La Porte, it started just before 10 a.m. at Spencer Highway near East Boulevard near a Walmart and H-E-B.

Traffic was closed in the area and people were asked to avoid the area and reroute.

• Pipeline fire is along Spencer Highway near East Boulevard
• Natural gas liquid is burning from the pipeline owned by Energy Transfer
• No timetable for extinguishing the fire — could be hours or could last through the night into Tuesday
• Brookglen neighborhood being evacuated
• Shelter-in-place for La Porte ISD. San Jacinto College closed for the day
• East Harris County Activity Center to serve as shelter and cooling center
• Jimmy Burke Activity Center on 13th Street is serving as a temporary relocation site
• Faithbridge Church at 4711 Center Street is also a shelter
• Lack of wind is helping keep the fire and smoke from spreading

Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia said this pipeline runs along the city limits between Deer Park and La Porte, so emergency responders from both cities are reacting to the fire.

“There are about 350 homes that are very near the fire point and so there’s an evacuation order in place,” Garcia said.

RELATED: Images and video from Deer Park show fire shooting up from pipeline

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 a natural gas line started burning just before 10 a.m.

Mouton Jr. provided this update around 1:30 p.m. Monday:

Energy Transfer said it happened at a valve station and involved a 20-inch natural gas liquids pipeline. They added that the line has been isolated to burn out the residual product.

Here is Energy Transfer’s full statement:

“We experienced an incident this morning in La Porte, Texas, at a valve station along Spencer Highway for a 20” natural gas liquids line that resulted in a fire. There are no reports of injuries at this time. The LaPorte Fire Department is on the scene and has evacuated all homes and businesses within a half mile of the incident site. The line has been isolated so that the residual product in the line can safely burn itself out. We have no timeline at this point on how long that process will take, but we are working closely with local authorities. We are aware of early reports indicating that an unknown passenger car entered our right-of-way and struck the value location. Air monitoring equipment is in the process of being set up in the area. We will continue to release details as they become available.”

Mouton said the biggest risk was the constant heat being generated from the fire. Energy Transfer lowered the PSI, pound-force per square inch, of the pipeline from 1,400 to 200 to lower the intensity of the fire.

KHOU 11 Investigates’ Jeremy Rogalski said there are a series of pipelines that run on an easement in the area where the fire is. Each pipeline has a different hazardous material marker on it. They include petroleum, methanol, dry gas as well as ethane.

The fire department recommended an evacuation between Luella and Canada in the Brookglen neighborhood.

Residents near the fire were evacuated due to power loss, according to the Deer Park Office of Emergency Management. SETRAC was working on a potential evacuation for a nearby assisted living facility.

RELATED: Deer Park pipeline fire impacting nearby neighborhood in La Porte; schools shelter in place

East Harris County Activity Center at 7340 Spencer Hwy in Pasadena was set up as an evacuation shelter and cooling center for those affected by the fire.

There was also shelter-in-place orders for the H-E-B, Walmart, Heritage Elementary, College Park Elementary and James H. Baker.

H-E-B Public Affairs Houston Managing Director Lisa Helfman said this about their store: “Due to the proximity of the pipeline fire, H-E-B Deer Park is closed and has been evacuated until it is safe to return.”

A temporary relocation site was established at the Jimmy Burke Activity Center on 13th Street. Also, the Faithbridge Church at 4711 Center Street is serving as a shelter.

“This is devastating to see this in the back of my yard,” one resident told KHOU 11 reporter Troy Kless.

“We kind of knew the area, we know that it’s an industrial area, we know that there’s pipelines behind the house,” a resident said. “We have pipelines all over.”

La Porte ISD reported that all students were safe and sheltering in place.

Deer Park ISD reports that none of their schools were impacted by the pipeline fire.

La Porte ISD issued this statement on the release of students:

“While our schools are continuing to operate normally, students from several of our campuses live in the area affected by the evacuation. Therefore, we are unable to transport those children home by bus. The district is in the process of contacting parents who will need to arrange for pickup of their students (at their home campus).”

According to KHOU 11 Meteorologist Pat Cavlin, winds were light so the flames were just straight up in the sky along with the smoke.

According to the San Jacinto College Office of Emergency Management, the shelter-in-place was lifted at the Central Campus but it will be closed for the rest of Monday and there will be no classes or activities. School officials said Central Campus employees should plan to work remotely.

At this time, the Central Campus plans to re-open on Tuesday morning for scheduled classes, operations, and activities.

Views from Air 11 showed the fire coming from the pipeline with a charred vehicle nearby. There was also a radius of charred grass from a grass fire that was started by the explosion.

Aerial views also showed the grass fire flames close to the fences of homes nearby.

More than 4,000 customers were left without power due to the fire. Here’s a statement from CenterPoint Energy:

“CenterPoint Energy is monitoring the incident on Spencer Highway in LaPorte, which is unrelated to the company’s natural gas operations or equipment. We are also cooperating with first responders. Putting safety first, the public should avoid this area until further notice from local emergency officials. When it is safe to do so, our electric crews will go into the area to assess the damage to our transmission and distribution power lines, poles and equipment and begin restoring service to impacted customers as safely and quickly as possible.”