BUTLER TWP — A tank holding hydrocarbon condensate that caught fire at a Marcellus Shale natural gas well site Tuesday evening did not leak onto the ground, a company spokesman said.

“The integrity of the tanks and related equipment, including the wellheads, was not affected by this incident. There were no spills or releases from the tanks or impact to the environment,” said Pat Creighton of Rex Energy.

The drilling site is at 663 Meridian Road.

One of two tanks holding condensate — a mixture of water and hydrocarbons that is a byproduct of natural gas extraction — caught fire. The company and state Department of Environmental Protection officials spent Wednesday investigating at the site to try to determine the cause of the fire.

The site has four other tanks that contain water that comes out of the well as part of the gas extraction process.

“The two wells at the location were immediately shut-in and the fire was extinguished within an hour,” Creighton said. “No one was injured and no homes were evacuated.”

He said the fire department had the fire extinguished in about an hour.

Creighton said firefighters cannot quickly extinguish such a fire until they secure a perimeter of the site and the wells that feed the tanks are shut down.

Creighton said the wells will be out of production for a few days.

Gary Clark, a DEP spokesman, said the agency’s primary involvement is to make sure that nothing has or is being discharged.

“In this particular case, the company will test the soil and share the results with us,” Clark said.

Clark said the affected tanks will be tested for integrity. The containment lining in the tank battery will need to be repaired and the company plans to install a new grounding system in case the cause of the fire was a storm.

Toby Wehr, chief of the Butler Township Fire District 3, said firefighters were well prepared to respond to the fire due to special training they received.

He said firefighters had attended state-sponsored flammable liquids and well site safety training sessions. Firefighters also toured other well sites.

Before the construction of the well site a couple years ago, he said firefighters had a few meetings with Rex regarding safety.

The Butler Township Fire District 3 was in charge at the well site. Firefighters from Penn Township, Evans City, Connoquenessing and Saxonburg assisted.

The county’s Hazardous Materials Team also responded.

“Safety is Rex Energy’s first and foremost priority,” Creighton said in a statement.

“While this type of event is rare, we have emergency response protocols in place to address them and those protocols worked as designed,” he said.

“We thank the first-responders for their professionalism and efforts.”

Should members of the community have questions, contact Rex Energy at community@rexenergycorp.com.

Eagle staff writer John Bojarski contributed to this report.