DEER PARK, Texas — Residents who had to evacuate their homes because of the pipeline fire that’s been burning in Deer Park will be allowed back home on Wednesday evening.
According to the City of Deer Park, the evacuation for Deer Park and La Porte who had to leave will be allowed back in at 6 p.m.
The fire at the pipeline owned by Energy Partners has been burning for days but is now much smaller. The City of Deer Park said crews are working to fix infrastructure around the fire by 6 p.m. Thursday. They said once that’s complete, the fire should be out two to three hours later.
Spencer Highway will stay closed between Luella and East/Canada Blvd. The city is asking people to avoid the area until Deer Park police finish the investigation.
Air quality monitoring continues.
The fire started just before 10 a.m. Monday at Spencer Highway near East Boulevard near the Brookglen neighborhood.
On Monday evening, the City of Deer Park confirmed the fire was caused by an SUV crashing through the fence of a nearby Walmart and hitting an above-ground valve. Police haven't confirmed the identity of that driver or said whether they survived the crash or where they are now.
Hundreds of residents between Luella Dr. and Canada and Spencer Highway and Oakhaven/Eagle Run were evacuated due to the fire. Heritage Elementary and College Park Elementary were also evacuated, along with a nearby H-E-B and Walmart.
The heat from the pipeline fire ignited a grass fire near the neighborhood and a playground was destroyed.
Some power poles also caught fire and thousands of customers were left without power. CenterPoint said that during the peak of the outage, more than 4,000 customers were impacted. Power has since been restored, CenterPoint announced on Wednesday.
This is a developing story. We’ll post updates as we get them.