Search continues for 2 missing after Gulf platform fire

• Coast Guard: Monitoring continues to show no oil is coming from the well
• Fire was reportedly started by a torch cutting a pipe that was filled with oil
• 4 workers reportedly suffered second- and third-degree burns over most of their bodies

NEW ORLEANS – The Coast Guard was searching late Friday for two workers missing after a fire erupted on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, sending an ominous black plume of smoke into the air reminiscent of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that transformed the oil industry and life along the coast.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Bobby Nash said that monitoring continues to show no oil is coming from the well. He said a Coast Guard cutter was continuing its search into the night, and that a broader rescue effort would resume after daybreak Saturday.

Eleven workers suffering less serious injuries were airlifted to area hospitals in helicopters from energy companies, and nine others were evacuated safely. The fire was extinguished after about two hours.

West Jefferson hospital officials told WWL-TV that four people were brought in by helicopter in critical condition. The men reportedly suffered second- and third-degree burns over most of their bodies.

The fire erupted at a shallow-water platform 36 miles east of Port Fourchon, on the tip of Lafourche Parish, said Chett Chiasson, executive director of Port Fourchon, which services oil and gas companies in the region.

Coast Guard Lt. Cheryl Hickey, command duty officer for the New Orleans sector, said crews were performing maintenance on the rig at the time of the fire and that the platform was not actively pumping oil.

Coast Guard Incident Commander Ed Cubanski said the fire was started by a torch cutting a pipe that was filled with a maximum 75 gallons of oil.

A sheen of oil about a half-mile long and 200 yards wide was reported on the Gulf surface, but officials believe it came from residual oil on the platform.

"It's not going to be an uncontrolled discharge from everything we're getting right now," Cubanski said.

The platform, which is in 30 to 40 feet of water, is operated by Houston-based Black Elk Energy, which in recent years has acquired platforms in the Gulf, Chiasson said. WWL-TV reports on the company's safety record.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with those who are impacted," the company said in a statement.

A federal official in Washington said a team of environmental enforcement inspectors was flying to the scene.

David Smith, a spokesman for the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said the team would scan for any evidence of oil spilling and investigate the cause of the explosion.

Unlike the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, which killed 11 crewmen and unleashed more than 100 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, Friday's incident does not pose a similar threat. Chiasson said.

Contributing: Associated Press