Flaring at the Chevron Richmond Refinery stopped a few hours after sending a tall plume of smoke into the air above the East Bay, the company said Friday afternoon.
The smoke prompted the refinery to issue a level one warning, one of the lowest on the scale, Chevron Richmond said in a Facebook post. The incident started at about 11:20 a.m. Friday and the company announced flaring had stopped at 2:25 p.m.
Asked whether the incident had posed any danger to the public, Brian Hubinger, a Chevron spokesman, said: "We do know that Richmond Fire (Department) as well as our emergency services as well as county health were all out taking air samples, and I'm not aware of any levels of concern that were identified."
The company said the flaring activity was caused by "an upset at a process unit."
Chevron crews resolved the issue, the post said, but intermittent flaring is still possible. The incident is still under investigation, the company said.
