Crescent Point tank farm damaged by lightning fire

An oil tank farm owned and operated by Crescent Point Energy was heavily damaged by fire following a lightning strike early Friday morning near Stoughton.The lightning hit around 3:30 a.m., and there was an immediate response by staff on the site, plus the Stoughton Fire Department was called out to the site located eight miles west and three miles south of Stoughton, so the fire was contained to the tank farm area without any further damages, said Dale Rinas, the southeast field manager for Crescent Point.The tank farm had 12 1,000-gallon oil tanks involved in the fire, and of those, six were damaged, and six were considered still intact, said Rinas, although they will need to checked out thoroughly to ensure their integrity is still intact.Our first concern is the safety of our people and the public. In this specific incident, it made more sense to contain the fire to the site and keep people at a safe distance, he said, explaining how the fire was allowed to burn out. The site was declared completely secure from any further risk or damage at 9:49 a.m. on Saturday.Initially, a crew of 12 volunteer fire fighters responded from Stoughton, along with the RCMP, and due to the decision by Crescent Point to allow the fire to burn itself out, the fire department mainly was concerned with ensuring the fire did not spread to any property or buildings beyond the tank farm, and also took care of traffic control, said fire chief Pat Slater.He added his people were on the site for about 12 hours before the company called in Firemaster and HSE from Weyburn, and they then took over the scene; Firemaster applied the foam to the oil fire, and HSE set up air monitoring stations around the area.Rinas was not able to say how much oil was involved in the fire, as of Monday morning the company was still removing the oil from the six intact tanks.A full investigation will be conducted as to the cause; if theres anything we can do to prevent this from happening again, well apply that to all of our properties, said Rinas, adding lightning strikes are fairly common, and there isnt much that can be done to prevent fires from these incidents. The RCMP are also continuing with their investigation into the fire, and have said initially the fire is not believed to be suspicious.He noted the company was able to contain the fire to the tank farm, and some equipment nearby was removed before any further damage was done, plus there were no injuries as a result, mostly because the employees on the scene immediately acted with their emergency response protocol.