re: This is a serious, developing situation in Garden Grove, Orange County, California.

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Or is this heat a chemical reaction within the tank? If so, why?

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Would be my thought. I have no specifics on this chemical or what happened though.

Basically the catalyst was added and now the reaction is happening. Seems to be exothermic so heat is being released. Could be some sort of oxidizing reaction and is just feeding itself or there was enough catalyst intoduced to keep the reaction going for a while. Eventually the reaction will use up all the catalyst and they just have to pull heat away until that happens.

From what I read, the tank valves are FUBAR

Can’t open tank, can’t release pressure. I’m guessing this tank needs regular releases.

Looks like this place is on the edge of a small industrial park and across the street from a neighborhood. Wonder who was there first?

Wow this is a big deal!!!

From my understanding, these tank have an internal cooling coil system (assuming chilled water pumped through coils) and somehow the cooling system failed. Not sure why they don't have some type of emergency block valves to bypass and have ability to free flow cold water through them in an emergency. You'd think this would be on a double/triple redundancy safety system, but I'm not familiar with exact process. As stated above, once that happened the MMA started to solidify or gel and rendered the valves inoperable to evacuate material from the tank.

My old apartment growing up is in the blast zone.

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the main use of MMA is making PMMA plastics.

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It is also sometimes used in dentistry to make temps after a crown prep.

Polymerizerizing into a solid mass might not be a guarantee of nothing more happening.

Shell Chemical cancelled a polyketone product while completing its first commercial unit at Geismar. They made 47 batches (20,000 gal agitated reactors) to experiment with variations in feed/catalyst. As pellets no problem but when they just dumped extruded product into hoppers in large blobs, several exploded during the night throwing hoppers over a 7 story warehouse, dry process area. After the outer skin had hardened the reaction still kept going. The plant rigged up a truck with "2-inch steel armor shield" and a 10,000 psi water lance to burst the remaining blobs to keep from damaging anything.

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From what I read, the tank valves are FUBAR

Can’t open tank, can’t release pressure. I’m guessing this tank needs regular releases.

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Latest news indicate situation has improved somewhat...

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Officials in Orange County say a major shift in conditions at a Garden Grove chemical facility has significantly reduced the immediate risk of a catastrophic explosion.

In a joint statement from the city of Westminster and the Westminster Police Department, experts described the situation as “critically positive.”

The update comes as Governor Gavin Newsom issued a rare plea to the Trump administration for federal help in dealing with the looming disaster.

But authorities now say the situation has improved after a key change inside the container.

“OCFA has reported the tank has cracked and released some pressure, taking away the potential of a catastrophic explosion.

“There is no leak of chemical substance. This is a new positive development and the science experts are still evaluating this,” according to the city and police officials.

OCFA Interim Fire Chief TJ McGovern said crews entered the site late Saturday to conduct a close visual inspection of the tank.

“We developed a plan to go do an operation last night, late night to go get eyes and do a reconnaissance on the tank.

“During that operation, our firefighters went in and they were able to visualize the tank. What they found was a potential crack in the tank, which could potentially be relieving some of the pressure in there,” McGovern.

“With this new information, it could change our trajectory and our strategy to this event. Last night was a successful operation for this emerging incidence in this ongoing incident,” he added.

Officials say the new information is now being carefully verified as engineers and hazardous materials specialists reassess the stability of the tank and what the apparent crack could mean for overall risk levels at the facility.

“I know this is a disruption. Your protection, your life safety is our paramount responsibility right now. We know you’re out of your homes. We want to get you back, but we cannot do that until it’s deemed safe,” the interim fire chief said.

Air quality sensors placed around the site have not detected any toxic releases, despite the structural change in the tank.

“Crack discovered at top of tank; releasing pressure – NOT chemicals,” the latest update said, emphasizing that the relief in pressure appears to have reduced the most dangerous risk scenario.

https://nypost.com/2026/05/24/us-news/oc-officials-reveal-critical-update-on-chemical-tank-explosion-threat/

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That ain’t no funky reggae party. Yikes. Probably doesn’t smell like Lou Dog either.