Firefighters and refinery crews brought a blaze under control at a Chevron refining complex in Southern California on Wednesday evening after several hours of firefighting, company and municipal officials said. The Los Angeles County Fire Department said units responded within minutes and declared the situation contained; there were no reported fatalities and only minor injuries, a department spokesperson said. Chevron confirmed the fire was confined to a single processing unit and that emergency systems functioned as designed.

“We can confirm the unit-level incident is extinguished and the safety of our employees and neighbors remains our top priority,” a Chevron spokesperson said in a written statement. The company said it had shut down the affected unit to investigate the cause and would work with local regulators on the follow-up review. The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an advisory while crews were on scene and said it would monitor emissions data; preliminary readings did not indicate sustained high levels of pollutants, the agency added.

Refinery outages in California, even when short-lived, carry outsized economic consequences because the state operates with relatively little spare refining capacity and relies on a unique California Air Resources Board gasoline formulation that limits quick substitution from out-of-state supplies. California’s refining capacity is roughly 1.9 million barrels per day — about 10 percent of the U.S. total — and regional margins and distributable product supplies can be sensitive to unplanned disruptions.

Market analysts said an outage confined to one processing unit is unlikely to move the national energy complex, but could tighten supplies of gasoline or diesel in Southern California if the unit processes a significant share of the plant’s output. “Given how thin spare capacity is in the region, temporary reductions in throughput can translate into higher rack prices and pressure retail pumps in the short run,” said Maya Patel, an energy markets analyst. Traders typically watch regional inventories and spot rack prices in Los Angeles for signs of stress after such incidents.

The event also underscores an ongoing policy debate about the resilience and regulation of refining infrastructure in a state pushing aggressive decarbonization measures. Lawmakers and environmental groups have increasingly pointed to safety and emissions risks at aging facilities as justification for tighter oversight, while industry groups counter that refineries remain essential to fuel security during the transition to cleaner transport.

Chevron said it would cooperate fully with state and federal investigators and perform a root-cause analysis before returning the unit to service. The company’s brief outage comes amid broader long-term trends: declining U.S. refining margins, consolidation in the sector, and accelerating electric vehicle adoption that is expected to erode gasoline demand over time. For now, market watchers will monitor California rack prices and the refinery’s restart timeline for clues about near-term local supply and price effects.