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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials last inspected the refinery and Chevron's legally mandated risk management plan in 2010. They found no violations. Carol Bluitt, who lives blocks from the refinery, said she was traumatized by the blaze that darkened the sky for miles and smelled like burning rubber. "You could clearly tell it there was something toxic in the air. My eyes were really, really red and running," Bluitt said. Bluitt said she went to the hospital Tuesday morning and complained that her chest was tight. They prescribed eye drops and an inhaler, she said. The blaze in the refinery's No. 4 Crude Unit was contained in about five hours, Chevron said in a statement on its website. Three employees suffered minor injuries, according to the company. County health officials used automated calls to warn residents of Richmond, San Pablo and the unincorporated community of North Richmond to stay inside and cover cracks around doors with tape or damp towels. A fire at the refinery in January 2007 injured two workers and spewed low levels of sulfur dioxide and other toxins into the air. County officials said then that it was not enough to harm the health of nearby residents. That fire shut down the refinery for most of that year's first earnings quarter. This latest disruption at one of the West Coast's big refineries was expected to affect gasoline prices in the region. The Richmond refinery produces about 150,000 barrels of gasoline a day -- or 16 percent of the region's daily gasoline consumption of 963,000 barrels, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. With inventories of gasoline in the region already low compared with the rest of the country, pump prices on the West Coast will soon average more than $4 a gallon, Kloza said. Chevron spokesman Lloyd Avram said he did not know when the refinery could be restarted and declined to comment on the impact the shutdown might have on the gasoline market. Analyst Patrick DeHaan of the website GasBuddy.com warned that Oregon and Washington would see a price hike soon. "Spot prices have already increased by as much as 30 cents per gallon in some West Coast markets and that's before the refinery damage has been fully assessed," DeHaan said.
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