{"id":332627,"date":"2026-05-26T08:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T08:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/332627\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T08:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T08:37:13","slug":"explosion-fears-at-melroses-gkn-aerospace-plant-trigger-evacuation-of-50000-california-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/332627\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosion fears at Melrose’s GKN Aerospace plant trigger evacuation of 50,000 California residents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shares in\u00a0Melrose Industries PLC (LSE:MRO, OTC:MLSPF)<\/a>\u00a0fell as much 7%\u00a0after a chemical incident at a GKN Aerospace facility in California triggered mass evacuations and warnings from emergency crews that a storage tank risked exploding.<\/p>\n

Authorities said the wider crisis was not yet over, however, warning there remained a risk of a smaller explosion or chemical leak. Evacuation orders were reduced but still covered around 16,000 residents.<\/p>\n

The aerospace and engineering group said a \u201cthermal issue\u201d involving a storage tank containing methyl methacrylate, a highly flammable chemical used in aerospace acrylics, was identified at its Garden Grove site in Orange County on 21 May.<\/p>\n

Melrose said local authorities had since reduced the evacuation zone and confirmed that there had been \u201cno injuries, leaks or contamination\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, local officials and media reports suggested the situation was significantly more serious than the company\u2019s brief update implied.<\/p>\n

According to local broadcaster KTLA, about 50,000 residents were forced to leave their homes after emergency services warned that the overheating 34,000-gallon tank could either rupture or explode.<\/p>\n

Orange County Fire Authority division chief Craig Covey said on Friday that crews were facing \u201ctwo options left remaining\u201d \u2013 either a spill of \u201c6,000 to 7,000 gallons of very bad chemicals\u201d or a \u201cthermal runaway\u201d explosion.<\/p>\n

Officials said temperatures inside the tank had continued to rise despite earlier efforts to stabilise the site, prompting emergency crews to bring in specialists from across the US. Covey described allowing the tank to explode as \u201cunacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Orange County Fire Authority officials said the threat of a so-called BLEVE \u2013 short for boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion \u2013 was \u201coff the table\u201d after crews discovered a crack in the tank was releasing pressure.<\/p>\n

GKN apologised over the weekend for the \u201csignificant disruption\u201d caused to local residents and businesses, saying it was working \u201ctirelessly\u201d with emergency teams to resolve the situation safely.<\/p>\n

At 9.10am, the stock was down 25.62p to\u00a0483.98p, but off its session low.<\/p>\n

In a note, broker Peel Hunt said: “GKN is working closely with customers on operational recovery and supply plans. It is too early to assess the possible financial impact and we will have to wait for further updates from the company. The core investment case is unchanged.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0 ** UPDATE: Adds share price and broker comment **<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shares in\u00a0Melrose Industries PLC (LSE:MRO, OTC:MLSPF)\u00a0fell as much 7%\u00a0after a chemical incident at a GKN Aerospace facility in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,116650,136494,16418,49014,137791,71209],"class_list":["post-332627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-emergency-crews","tag-gkn-aerospace","tag-local-authorities","tag-melrose","tag-melrose-industries","tag-orange-county-fire-authority"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}