Many of us are familiar with the story of the massive tank farm fire that took place here in Brea on the morning of April 8th 1926 but did you know that the day before in San Luis Obispo there was another almost identical fire? In fact the similarities are quite striking as evidenced by the photos.
The west coast was in the midst of a massive rain storm when on the morning of April 7th lightning struck a reservoir tank at Union Oil’s San Luis Obispo tank farm; then the largest oil tank farm in the world. The bolt exploded four tanks each containing 250,000 barrels of oil (about 42,000,000 gallons). The very next morning, generated from the same storm system, another bolt of lightning struck, this time here in Brea. That bolt struck a single reservoir containing 750,000 barrels. It wasn’t long before a second reservoir was engulfed. Stewart Station was not quite as large as the San Luis Obispo station, but the exploding reservoirs resulted in two fatalities here in Brea. To learn more about the fire and other amazing stories from Brea’s past, be sure to visit the museum.
