2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster
Explosion in Anacortes, Washington state, U.S.
The 2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster was an industrial accident that occurred at the Tesoro Anacortes Refinery in Anacortes, Washington on April 2, 2010. Seven workers received fatal burns in an explosion and ensuing fire when a heat exchanger violently ruptured after a maintenance restart.
Explosion
At 12:30 a.m. on April 2, while personnel were performing post-maintenance heat exchanger restart operations, a heat exchanger on an adjacent bank catastrophically and violently ruptured. The pressure-containing shell of the heat exchanger burst at its weld seams, expelling a large volume of very hot hydrogen and naphtha, which spontaneously ignited upon contact with the surrounding air. The ensuing explosion was so violent that many in Anacortes felt the shock wave across Fidalgo Bay. A giant fireball lit up the sky above the refinery, and a plume of black smoke was pushed toward the town by a southeast wind. It took about 90 minutes to put the fire out.
Aftermath
The families of the victims and an injured contractor filed a lawsuit against Tesoro. The lawsuit was settled for $39 million, but as of 2020 the company continued to fight a fine and government accusations that it willfully put its workers in harm's way.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster” is explosion in Anacortes, Washington state, U.S. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tesoro, Anacortes and Refinery, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “explosion in Anacortes, Washington state, U.S” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19757584. Authority coordinates are 48.496, -122.568. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010 and 2020.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster primary sources, 2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster archive and Tesoro research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “2010 Tesoro Anacortes Refinery disaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.