Safety Flare Mistaken for Plant Fire in Louisiana

An unscheduled chemical release triggered a ground flare Monday night at the NOVA Chemicals Olefins plant in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, state regulators report.

Overcast weather intensified the light from the flare causing concern about a possible factory fire, officials with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality told The Advocate newspaper.

A ground flare is a safety device that uses combustion to convert toxic or flammable releases into harmless vapor without the need of diverting it to the smokestack.

A statement issued by Nova states that the unspecified release did not result in an emergency and no workers were injured.

The Geismar facility annually produces nearly 1.95 billion pounds of ethylene. It also produces polymer grade propylene, crude butadiene and debutanized aromatic concentrate (DAC).

Canadian owned NOVA bought the Geismar facility in 2017. In 2013, an explosion in a heat exchanger killed two workers and injured 114.