A fire that burned for 4 days after Texas pipeline explosion has finally gone out

recovery mode

Before the fire went out, its reduced size meant police finally had access to the area around the pipeline. Photo via Getty Images

A pipeline fire that burned in a Houston suburb for four days finally went out Thursday as authorities announced a criminal investigation into the blaze that had roared into a towering flame, forcing neighborhoods to evacuate and melting parts of nearby cars.

Before the fire fully stopped Thursday evening, officials announced that human remains were found in an SUV that had been next to the flame since the explosion happened Monday. Investigators say the fire began after the driver of that car went through a fence alongside a Walmart parking lot and struck an above-ground valve.

Officials in Deer Park, where the explosion occurred, described the crash as an accident, and said police and local FBI agents have not found evidence of a coordinated or terrorist attack.

“This has developed into a criminal investigation and will be actively ongoing until more information is available,” the city said in a statement late Thursday.

As authorities worked to identify who had driven the vehicle, residents who were forced to flee the towering blaze returned to assess the damage on Thursday. They found mailboxes and vehicles partially melted by the intense heat, a neighborhood park charred and destroyed and fences burned to the ground.

“Devastated, upset, scared. We don’t know what we’re going to do now,” said Diane Hutto, 51, after finding her home severely damaged by water that firefighters poured on it to keep it from catching fire. Hutto’s home is located only a few hundred feet from the pipeline.

Before the fire went out, its reduced size meant police finally had access to the area around the pipeline. Investigators removed the white SUV and towed it away Thursday morning.

While medical examiners with Harris County were processing the vehicle, they recovered and removed human remains found inside, Deer Park officials said in a statement.

Officials say the underground pipeline, which runs under high-voltage power lines in a grassy corridor between the Walmart and a residential neighborhood, was damaged when the SUV driver left the store’s parking lot, entered the wide grassy area and went through a fence surrounding the valve equipment.

But authorities have offered few details on what caused the vehicle to crash through the fence and hit the pipeline valve.

Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based company that owns the pipeline, on Wednesday called it an accident. Deer Park officials said preliminary investigations by police and FBI agents found no evidence of a terrorist attack.

The pipeline is a 20-inch-wide (50-centimeter-wide) conduit that runs for miles through the Houston area. It carries natural gas liquids through Deer Park and La Porte, both of which are southeast of Houston.

Authorities evacuated nearly 1,000 homes at one point and ordered people in nearby schools to shelter in place. Officials began letting residents return to their homes on Wednesday evening.

Hutto said Thursday the fire incinerated her home’s backyard fence and partially melted a small shed where her husband stored his lawnmower. Inside the home, mold and mildew were starting to set in from the water damage, and part of the ceiling in her daughter's bedroom had collapsed.

“Everything is just soaking wet,” she said. “It smells bad. I don’t think there’s really anything we can salvage at this point.”

Across the street, Robert Blair found minor damage when he returned to his home Thursday morning. It included broken and cracked windows and a window screen and irrigation system pipes that had been melted by the heat.

“We were very lucky here. It could have been worse,” said Blair, 67.

The pipeline’s valve equipment appears to have been protected by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Energy Transfer has not responded to questions about any other safety protections that were in place.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official, said Thursday that officials will look at whether they can require companies like Energy Transfer to install better security measures, including concrete structures around pipelines and their aboveground valves.

“If they had that around it, I don’t think this would have happened,” Blair said.

Energy Transfer and Harris County officials have said that air quality monitoring showed no immediate risk to individuals, despite the huge tower of billowing flame that shot hundreds of feet into the air when the fire first began, creating thick black smoke that hovered over the area.

Houston, Texas’ largest city, is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight in the area, including some that have been deadly, raising recurring questions about the adequacy of industry efforts to protect the public and the environment.

Hidalgo said some residents she spoke with told her they don’t feel safe living in the area after this week’s fire.

Hutto, whose husband works in a petrochemical plant, said living near such facilities has always been a concern, but this week’s fire has changed things for her.

“I don’t think I want to live here anymore. I’m just too scared to stay here,” Hutto said.

Here are some things to know about the situation with the pipeline fire burning just outside of Houston. Photo via Getty Images

What to know about the Houston pipeline fire — how it started, pollution impact, and more

latest update

A pipeline fire that forced hundreds of people to flee their homes in the Houston suburbs burned for a third day Wednesday, with officials saying they don't expect it to be extinguished until sometime Thursday evening.

Officials said residents who had to evacuate would be allowed to return to their homes starting Wednesday evening.

Authorities have offered few details about what prompted the driver of an SUV to hit an aboveground valve on the pipeline on Monday, sparking the blaze.

Here are some things to know about the situation with the pipeline fire:

What caused the fire?

Officials say the underground pipeline, which runs under high-voltage power lines in a grassy corridor between a Walmart and a residential neighborhood in Deer Park, was damaged when the SUV driver left the store's parking lot, entered the wide grassy area and went through a fence surrounding the valve equipment.

Authorities have offered few details on what caused the vehicle to hit the pipeline valve, the identity of the driver or what happened to them. The pipeline company on Wednesday called it an accident. Deer Park officials said preliminary investigations by police and FBI agents found no evidence of a terrorist attack.

Deer Park police won't be able to reach the burned-out vehicle until the flame has been extinguished. Once the area is safe, the department will be able to continue its investigation and confirm specifics, city spokesperson Kaitlyn Bluejacket said in an email Wednesday.

The valve equipment appears to have been protected by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The pipeline's operator has not responded to questions about any other safety protections that were in place.

Who is responsible for the pipeline?

Energy Transfer is the Dallas-based owner of the pipeline, a 20-inch-wide (50-centemeter-wide) conduit that runs for miles through the Houston area.

It carries natural gas liquids through the suburbs of Deer Park and La Porte, both of which are southeast of Houston. Energy Transfer said the fire had diminished overnight and was continuing to “safely burn itself out” on Wednesday.

Energy Transfer also built the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been at the center of protests and legal battles. The company’s executive chairman, Kelcy Warren, has given millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

What's being done to extinguish the fire?

Energy Transfer said its crews were working Wednesday to install specialized isolation equipment on both sides of the damaged section that will help extinguish the fire.

Once the equipment is installed, which could take several hours of welding, the isolated section of the pipeline will be purged with nitrogen, which will extinguish the fire, company and local officials said. After that, damaged components can be repaired.

“The safest way to manage this process is to let the products burn off,” Energy Transfer said.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Deer Park officials said repair work on the pipeline to help speed up the process to put out the fire wasn't expected to be completed until 6 p.m. on Thursday. Once finished, the fire was anticipated to be extinguished within two to three hours.

How have residents been impacted?

Authorities evacuated nearly 1,000 homes at one point and ordered people in nearby schools to shelter in place. Officials said that starting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, residents in Deer Park and La Porte who had to evacuate would be allowed to return to their homes. A portion of a highway near the pipeline would remain closed, officials said.

Hundreds of customers lost power. Officials said Wednesday afternoon that only two customers remained without electricity in the Deer Park and La Porte area. Repairs to all of the power distribution lines affected by the fire had been completed.

Deer Park's statement said Energy Transfer was “prioritizing the safety of the community and environment as it implements its emergency response plan.”

“We appreciate the patience and understanding of all residents during this ongoing situation,” Deer Park officials said.

By late Tuesday, about 400 evacuees remained, and some expressed frustration over being forced to quickly flee and not being given any timeline for when they will be able to return.

“We literally walked out with the clothes on our backs, the pets, and just left the neighborhood with no idea where we were going,” said Kristina Reff, who lives near the fire. “That was frustrating.”

What about pollution from the fire?

Energy Transfer and Harris County officials have said that air quality monitoring shows no immediate risk to individuals, despite the huge tower of billowing flame that shot hundreds of feet into the air, creating thick black smoke that hovered over the area.

Houston is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight, and some have been deadly, raising recurring questions about industry efforts to protect the public and the environment.

In a statement Monday night, the city said it “appears to be an isolated incident” but officials have not provided details on how they came to that conclusion. Photo via Getty Images

Hundreds of homes near Houston still under evacuation orders as pipeline fire burns for second day

news update

A pipeline fire that erupted in a suburban Houston neighborhood burned throughout a second day and into the night Tuesday with still no definitive word on when the blaze would finally go out, when nearby residents may be able to return home or why a car drove through a fence and hit a valve before the destructive explosion.

Although the fire was getting smaller, the disruptions caused by the Monday morning explosion in a grassy corridor between a Walmart and a residential neighborhood left some locals increasingly weary. On Tuesday, people could be seen returning to their homes to get clothes and other items before quickly leaving again.

“We literally walked out with the clothes on our backs, the pets, and just left the neighborhood with no idea where we were going,” Kristina Reff said. “That was frustrating.”

Over 36 hours after the blast — which shot towering flames like a blowtorch above the suburbs of Deer Park and La Porte — authorities have provided few details about the circumstances leading up to the explosion.

Investigators said it happened after the driver of a sport utility vehicle went through a fence near the Walmart and struck an above-ground valve. As of Tuesday evening, authorities had not still not identified the driver or said what happened to them.

Deer Park officials have said police and FBI agents found no preliminary evidence to suggest the explosion of the pipeline, which carried natural gas liquids, was a coordinated or terrorist attack. In a statement Monday night, the city said it “appears to be an isolated incident” but officials have not provided details on how they came to that conclusion.

The car was incinerated by the explosion, which scorched the ground across a wide radius, severed power transmission lines, melted playground equipment and ignited some homes.

The valve, which appears to have been protected by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, is located within a long grassy field where high-voltage power lines run. Several pipelines run underground.

Authorities evacuated nearly 1,000 homes at one point and ordered people in nearby schools to shelter in place. By Tuesday afternoon that number was down to just over 400.

“The fire is still burning, but the good news is that the pressure within the pipeline is continuously dropping, which means we are getting closer to the fire going out,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement.

Operators shut off the flow after the explosion, but Hidalgo has said that 20 miles (32 kilometers) of pipeline stretched between the two closed valves and the chemicals inside had to burn off before the fire would stop.

Robert Hall, a senior advisor at the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust, said it’s not surprising that it’s taken more than a day for the material to stop burning.

“You’re talking about 20-inch pipelines and miles between valves, so it takes a long time to burn down,” Hall said.

On Tuesday, the Texas Railroad Commission that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry said its inspectors only will enter the site after it is deemed safe by emergency authorities.

Hall, who previously oversaw pipeline and hazardous materials investigations for the National Transportation Safety Board, said there are few regulations that govern the location of pipelines near homes and businesses.

“That becomes a very local issue, community by community,” Hall said, adding that some jurisdictions require bollards — sturdy pipes filled with concrete — to prevent vehicles from crashing into sensitive infrastructure.

Hidalgo said Tuesday that Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based owner of the pipeline, has said it was working to isolate parts of the pipeline closest to the fire by clamping it on each side.

Energy Transfer did not immediately respond to a question about what safety precautions were in place near the valve.

Hall said regulations from 2022 aimed at reducing deaths and environmental damage from ruptures were geared toward gas lines, not those carrying liquids, and would not have applied to this pipeline. He added that many new safety regulations that have been put in place do not apply retroactively to pre-existing pipelines.

Both Energy Transfer and Harris County Pollution Control were conducting air monitoring in the area and have found no health issues, according to Deer Park officials.

Since leaving home, Reff and her family have been staying in a hotel room paid for by Energy Transfer. But they were eager to return.

“It would be nice to be in our own beds,” she said.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston expert discusses the clean energy founder's paradox

Guest Column

Everyone tells you to move fast and break things. In clean energy, moving fast without structural integrity means breaking the only planet we’ve got. This is the founder's paradox: you are building a company in an industry where the stakes are existential, the timelines are glacial, and the capital requires patience.

The myth of the lone genius in a garage doesn’t really apply here. Clean energy startups aren’t just fighting competitors. They are fighting physics, policy, and decades of existing infrastructure. This isn’t an app. You’re building something physical that has to work in the real world. It has to be cheaper, more reliable, and clearly better than fossil fuels. Being “green” alone isn’t enough. Scale is what matters.

Your biggest risks aren’t competitors. They’re interconnection delays, permitting timelines, supply chain fragility, and whether your first customer is willing to underwrite something that hasn’t been done before.

That reality creates a brutal filter. Successful founders in this space need deep technical knowledge and the ability to execute. You need to understand engineering, navigate regulation, and think in terms of markets and risk. You’re not just selling a product. You’re selling a future where your solution becomes the obvious choice. That means connecting short-term financial returns with long-term system change.

The capital is there, but it’s smarter and more demanding. Investors today have PhDs in electrochemistry and grid dynamics. They’ve been burned by promises of miracle materials that never left the lab. They don't fund visions; they fund pathways to impact that can scale and make financial sense. Your roadmap must show not just a brilliant invention, but a clear, believable plan to drive costs down over time.

Capital in this sector isn’t impressed by ambition alone. It wants evidence that risk is being retired in the right order — even if that means slower growth early.

Here’s the upside. The difficulty of clean energy is also its strength. If you succeed, your advantage isn’t just in software or branding. It’s in hardware, supply chains, approvals, and years of hard work that others can’t easily copy. Your real competitors aren’t other startups. They’re inertia and the existing system. Winning here isn’t zero-sum. When one solution scales, it helps the entire market grow.

So, to the founder in the lab, or running field tests at a remote site: your pace will feel slow. The validation cycles are long. But you are building in the physical world. When you succeed, you don’t have an exit. You have a foundation. You don't just have customers; you have converts. And the product you ship doesn't just generate revenue; it creates a legacy.

If your timelines feel uncomfortable compared to software, that’s because you’re operating inside a system designed to resist change. And let’s not forget you are building actual physical products that interact with a complex world. Times are tough. Don’t give up. We need you.

---

Nada Ahmed is the founding partner at Houston-based Energy Tech Nexus.

Houston maritime startup raises $43M to electrify cargo vessels

A Houston-based maritime technology company that is working to reduce emissions in the cargo and shipping industry has raised VC funding and opened a new Houston headquarters.

Fleetzero announced that it closed a $43 million Series A financing round this month led by Obvious Ventures with participation from Maersk Growth, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, 8090 Industries, Y Combinator, Shorewind, Benson Capital and others. The funding will go toward expanding manufacturing of its Leviathan hybrid and electric marine propulsion system, according to a news release.

The technology is optimized for high-energy and zero-emission operation of large vessels. It uses EV technology but is built for maritime environments and can be used on new or existing ships with hybrid or all-electric functions, according to Fleetzero's website. The propulsion system was retrofitted and tested on Fleetzero’s test ship, the Pacific Joule, and has been deployed globally on commercial vessels.

Fleetzero is also developing unmanned cargo vessel technology.

"Fleetzero is making robotic ships a reality today. The team is moving us from dirty, dangerous, and expensive to clean, safe, and cost-effective. It's like watching the future today," Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures, said in the news release. "We backed the team because they are mariners and engineers, know the industry deeply, and are scaling with real ships and customers, not just renderings."

Fleetzero also announced that it has opened a new manufacturing and research and development facility, which will serve as the company's new headquarters. The facility features a marine robotics and autonomy lab, a marine propulsion R&D center and a production line with a capacity of 300 megawatt-hours per year. The company reports that it plans to increase production to three gigawatt-hours per year over the next five years.

"Houston has the people who know how to build and operate big hardware–ships, rigs, refineries and power systems," Mike Carter, co-founder and COO of Fleetzero, added in the release. "We're pairing that industrial DNA with modern batteries, autonomy, and software to bring back shipbuilding to the U.S."

Shell partners with UK-based co. for hydrogen electrolyzer pilot

ultra-efficient electrolyzer

Shell Global Solutions International, a subsidiary of Shell, which maintains its U.S. headquarters in Houston, has signed a collaboration agreement with London-based Supercritical Solutions to advance Supercritical’s ultra-efficient hydrogen electrolyzer technology toward a field pilot demonstration.

In the deal, the companies will collaborate on a paid technology feasibility study that will support the evaluation and planning of the pilot demonstration, according to a news release. Supercritical Solutions’ technology aims to deliver high-efficiency renewable hydrogen at a lower cost for the industrial hydrogen market.

"Signing this collaboration agreement with Shell is a major milestone for Supercritical Solutions and an important step on our commercialisation journey,” Luke Tan, co-founder of Supercritical, said in the news release. “We are directly addressing the cost and complexity barriers facing the renewable hydrogen market. We are excited to move forward with a company like Shell, whose global leadership has been proven to accelerate innovative technologies to market.”

Supercritical’s hydrogen electrolyser technology can operate at high temperatures and pressures of up to 220 bar without the need for an external hydrogen compressor, rare-earth materials or easily degradable membranes. The technology removes the typical compression step in the process while delivering hydrogen at industry standards. It requires significantly less energy than many traditional electrolyzers and is more cost-efficient.

This recent investment builds on an ongoing relationship between Shell and Supercritical. Supercritical was founded in 2020 and was runner-up in Shell’s New Energy Challenge, which helps startups and scaleups develop sustainable technologies, in 2021. Shell Ventures then invested in Supercritical’s Series A funding round in 2024 with Toyota Ventures.

View All Listings

ENERGYCAPITALHTX EMAILS ARE AWESOME