Published: September 02, 2009 04:39 pm      

Updated: Fire near gas well causes more than $8 million damage

A fire near a gas well site in Joshua destroyed more than $8 million worth of support equipment late Tuesday night, drawing 11 area fire departments to the scene.

Johnson County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Tim Jones said the original call went out around 11:15 p.m. Tuesday about the fire at the Urrey pad site run by Chesapeke Energy in the 3200 block of County Road 913, near Farm-to-Market Road 1902.

Chesapeake spokesman Jerri Robbins said a contractor was finishing hydraulic fracturing operations when one of the blender trucks caught on fire. Eleven area fire departments, including Joshua, Briaroaks, Mid North, Rendon, Crowley, Everman, Godley, Burleson, Bono, Cleburne and Tarrant County, responded to help with the incident.

Joshua Fire Department spokesman Russ Bassham arrived on the scene with the other departments and said all Chesapeake personnel had been evacuated.

He said 15 equipment trucks surrounded the fire as it burned, each holding diesel fuel and possibly explosive chemicals.

“It was a very big fire,” he said. “We couldn’t actually see the base of it because of the trucks, it was well over the trucks.”

Bassham said Rendon, Everman, Bono, and Crowley fire departments brought tanker trucks to battle the blaze that had reached 50-60 feet from the gas well.

Firefighters contained the fire at about 1:40 a.m., and it was completely extinguished by 4 a.m.

Jones said eight tractors, five pumps for the fracturing process, a blending unit and a hydration unit were destroyed, totaling $8.31 million in damages.

No injuries were reported, and Chesapeake is conducting an internal investigation of the cause, Robbins said.