An oil well pad near Sidney, Montana
An oil well pad near Sidney, Montana Credit: Eric Dietrich / MTFP

SIDNEY  — Authorities say an explosion at a storage and disposal plant in the oil fields of eastern Montana Wednesday night was felt by people 10 miles away but caused no injuries or fatalities.

The fire continued to burn Thursday while emergency crews waited until it became safer to approach the site, Richland County Emergency Manager Brandon Roth said.

No one was at the saltwater disposal plant about 3 miles south of Sidney, when the explosion happened, Roth said. It’s located in a rural area near the North Dakota border that’s dotted with hundreds of oil and gas wells and storage sites

Several storage tanks burned, according to Roth, who did not know what they contained or what company owns the facility. The cause was under investigation.

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