Texas City fire at decommissioned plant raises questions as investigation begins

TEXAS CITY, Texas (KTRK) — A Sunday morning fire at a decommissioned Texas City power plant saw sky-high smoke, searing flames, and a massive multi-agency response.

“You can hear big popping sounds, crashing sounds, from what I can imagine is things hitting the ground, and it’s just been nonstop as the building just keeps going down,’ Bacliff resident Shane Krajnik said.

The fire at the old PHR Peakers Plant on Highway 146 was staggering, and now, more than 36 hours later, city officials said the fire is out, and their investigation begins.

“It would be highly unlikely for something like this to just spontaneously combust. However, they are very old structures with very dry wood, and the weather was conducive to fire spread, so it very well could have been someone back there flicked a cigarette. We don’t know yet,” Texas City Fire Marshal Jason Brown said.

Decommissioned in the 90s, Texas City emergency management said the buildings had no power or gas running.

Fire Marshall Jason Brown said crews on scene watched as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th buildings burned from the top down, indicating wind from the south carried embers from one rooftop to the next. The real question is how the first building went up in flames.

“When you see all the social media comments from the community saying this really seems strange, something about this seems off. Are you surprised to see those are the social media comments happening?” ABC13 reporter Lileana Pearson asked Brown.

“I’m not really surprised. It’s understandable. It’s what some would say is suspicious, I understand that, but we’ll get to the cause of it and we’ll figure it out and we’ll let everyone know when we know.” Brown said.

Brown said just as they did with the firefighting, they will lean on neighboring agencies to bring in K9s and machinery to help look for starting points, accelerants, and other clues indicating a cause.

But with no sign of forced entry onto the property, the office of emergency management is saying, for now, it seems no one was on the property when the fire started.

City officials said the property is under video surveillance, which they hope will help pin down how this all played out.

Brown said they are lucky the fire didn’t jump off the island with the wind. On Sunday morning, teams spent time not only on the building but also putting out brush fires that popped up as well.

Now the waiting begins, Brown said an investigation this size would take weeks or even months.

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