At about 10 p.m. Tuesday, Lisa Vallee noticed flares coming from BP’s Whiting refinery.

“Obviously, we’re used to seeing smokestacks with the flames on it,” the Whiting resident said, “but this was a very, very large flame with huge plumes of black smoke coming from it.”

A BP spokesperson, at about 11 p.m. Tuesday, said in an email to the Post-Tribune that flares had started at the refinery. The refinery spokesperson did not say when flares started or stopped.

“The BP Whiting refinery is currently experiencing conditions that require materials to be burned in its flares,” the email said. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our neighbors.”

Nearby residents received an identical message through the Lake County alert system.

Normal operations had resumed at the refinery Wednesday morning, according to a BP Facebook post at about 8:30 a.m.

“The Whiting Refinery has returned to normal operations following a short flaring event,” the Facebook post said. “We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Vallee lives close enough to the refinery that she was worried she might have to evacuate the area if it was dangerous. She and her partner prepared to evacuate but never did.

Vallee said she lives about a mile away from the refinery.

“From where we live, we can’t normally see the flames unless they’re really high,” Vallee said. “You could just see, looking out our apartment window, the whole sky was going orange from flames shooting at the facility.”

Vallee listened to a police scanner to try to get more information, and she heard people from around Lake County calling about the flares. She also saw Whiting Fire Department trucks drive toward the BP facility, which Vallee said was concerning.

“We know that when they’re burning off products, that’s still going in the air, and they’re having to burn it off because something is going wrong,” she added. “I’ve not heard anything today about what might have been the actual issue; usually it’s something that’s discovered days later.”

Residents can’t ignore the flares when they’re that large, Vallee said Wednesday.

“You get this sense of dread and doom,” she added.

In mid-November, BP started and finished a planned flare at the Whiting refinery. Flares are a safety device used to help the refinery safely manage excess gases during maintenance or operational disruptions, BP previously said.

In January 2024, the oil refinery was hit by a power outage that required the company to shut down the facility and evacuate workers, according to the Associated Press, which led BP to flare its stacks.

A BP spokesperson did not comment on the reason behind Tuesday’s flare or if employees had to evacuate.

The Whiting refinery has more than 1,300 employees and 1,400 contractors, according to BP’s website. The refinery provides gas to Midwestern states and can produce enough fuel each day to support the average daily travel of more than 7 million cars.

mwilkins@chicagotribune.com