Firefighters declared extinguished the blaze that broke out eight days ago and burned six fuel tanks in the Brazilian Port of Santos, Latin America’s largest.
The crew finished putting out the flames this Friday after close to 200 hours of intense extinction efforts aided by aircraft of the Brazilian air force, the Firefighters Corps said.
Authorities have kept access to the port blocked since last week, which caused millions in losses because port operations were virtually shut down. When the port will be back in business is now being studied.
The fire also caused environmental damage and at least 7 tons of dead fish, killed by the water’s depleted oxygen levels and high temperatures, were removed from the Casqueiro River at the nearby town of Cubatao in Sao Paulo state.
Despite having put out the blaze, firefighters will continue working in the port this weekend to monitor the temperature in the gasoline tanks.
“There’s no more fire at the port, but we’ll continue working until Sunday with 140 firefighters from the state (of Sao Paulo) with support from the (Ultracargo) company,” the commander of the Sao Paulo Firefighters Corps, Marco Aurelio Alves Pinto, said.
The fire, whose causes are still unknown, broke out Thursday last week in a gasoline tank owned by the Ultracargo company, which stored in the port 3 million liters (792,560 gallons) of combustible diesel. The flames then spread to five neighboring storage tanks containing ethanol, gasoline and chemical products.
