Page 94 - FINAL Phillips 66 50 Year Book

Keith Revill, at the time the refinery’s protection leader, flew to Turkey
at a moment’s notice to visit Izmit Refinery, which was on fire. As a
company representative, he advised Turkish managers on what to do.
“I was on a day off when I got a call at 10am to go into work,” he told the
Refinery Extra newsletter at the time. “By 3pm I was on my way. I arrived
in Istanbul at 5am. By 1pm I was on my way to Izmit by car. It was an
80-mile drive and we had to negotiate several roadblocks. There was
very little damage visible on the journey but you could see the plume of
smoke above the refinery 15 miles away.”

Keith was met by armed guards who were reluctant to admit him. “There
were so many fire engines and people of different nationalities that they
didn’t really need any more help, but I managed to talk my way onto
the refinery where a couple of units had been flattened and six tanks
had been on fire. They had done remarkably well over the previous
couple of days in fighting the fires with limited resources. Some of the
firefighters had been at the incident for two to three days, working in
very dangerous conditions.

“The decision was made to let the two tanks burn out while cooling
the tanks nearby. I carried out a survey on a storage depot close to the
refinery and advised on what was necessary to bring units back online
safely.

“I was very pleased to go. Every fire is different, and you can always
learn something new. I’ll never forget the sight of aircraft dropping foam
onto the refinery fires.”

Above: Keith Revill - Refinery protection leader.
Right: Grab crane in action.