Four Hurt in 'Flash Fire' at Wyoming Natgas Tank

Four workers were injured Tuesday in a storage tank fire at a natural gas production facility at top gas producer EOG Resources Inc in Wyoming, the company said on Wednesday.

The EOG employees and two contract workers were cleaning the tank when the fire broke out at about 2:00 p.m., said Houston-based EOG Resources spokeswoman K Leonard.

"The tank stores natural gas, and was undergoing cleaning when the explosion occurred," the Lincoln County Homeland Security & Emergency Management said in a statement.

Leonard said the site contains one well and two small liquids storage tanks. She said the fire was extinguished and the well was shut in.

It was a "flash fire," Leonard said. "We would not describe it as an explosion."

Three of the injured men were taken to hospital for treatment and a fourth was treated and released from an outpatient facility, Leonard said.

An explosion in April shut down a Williams Companies Inc natural gas-processing plant about 40 miles south of La Barge, in Opal, that churned out about 2 percent of the daily U.S. gas supply. A nearby town was evacuated.

EOG Resources is one of the largest independent crude oil and natural gas companies in the United States, it says.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)