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Explosion and fire at the Valero oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas

By Scott Bachmeier •

5-minute GOES-19 Microphysics RGB images with an overlay of NGFS Fire Detection polygons and Surface Observations, from 2316 UTC on 23 March to 0931 UTC on 24 March [click to play MP4 animation]

5-minute CONUS Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Microphysics RGB images with an overlay of Next Generation Fire System (NGFS) Fire Detection polygons (above) showed the thermal signature of a fire that resulted from an explosion at the Valero oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas late in the day on 23 March 2026. The initial NGFS thermal signature occurred at 2326 UTC, and lasted nearly 10 hours until 0916 UTC (the maximum values of probed NGFS parameters occurred at 2336 UTC). Surface winds were light southerly in the vicinity of the fire.

True Color RGB images from the CSPP GeoSphere site (below) indicated that the resultant cloud was slowly spreading west-southwestward away from the refinery just before sunset (as a precaution, residents of the western parts of Port Arthur were instructed to shelter in place for about 12 hours). A subtle overshooting top was evident in the 2346 UTC image — with the entire cloud casting a shadow eastward across Sabine Lake.

5-minute GOES-19 daytime True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB images, from 2321 UTC on 23 March to 0016 UTC on 24 March [click to play MP4 animation]

A plot of rawinsonde data from nearby Lake Charles KLCH (below) indicated that the transition to northeast winds (that transported the bulk of the fire-generated cloud southwestward) occurred between the Lifting Condensation Level (at 852 hPa, or 1525 m) and the base of the strong subsidence inversion (at 825 hPa, or 1792 m).

Plot of rawinsonde data from Lake Charles, Louisiana at 0000 UTC on 24 March [click to enlarge]

As the fire continued to burn into the nighttime hours, a thermal signature (brighter pixels) was also apparent in GOES-19 Near-Infrared images (below).

5-minute GOES-19 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, top left), Visible (0.64 µm, top right) and Near-Infrared (1.61 µm and 2.25 µm, bottom) images, from 2311 UTC on 23 March to 0426 UTC on 24 March [click to play MP4 animation]

Categories: Fire detection, GOES-19, NGFS, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images