Human remains found inside SUV that officials say caused Texas pipeline fire

Authorities near Houston said Thursday they found human remains inside an SUV that hit an aboveground valve on a pipeline, causing a fire that has burned for four days.

With the fire substantially smaller since it began on Monday, police were able to access the area around the pipeline in Deer Park. Investigators removed the white SUV and towed it away Thursday morning.

While medical examiners with Harris County were processing the vehicle, they recovered and removed human remains found inside, Deer Park officials said in a statement.

"They will now begin working through their identification process, which will take some time," officials said.

Officials say the underground pipeline, which runs under high-voltage power lines in a grassy corridor between a Walmart and a residential neighborhood in Deer Park, was damaged when the SUV driver left the store's parking lot, entered the wide grassy area and went through a fence surrounding the valve equipment.

But authorities have offered few details on what caused the crash.

Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based company that owns the pipeline, on Wednesday called it an accident. Deer Park officials said preliminary investigations by police and FBI agents found no evidence of a terrorist attack.

The 20-inch pipeline runs for miles through the Houston area, carrying natural gas liquids through Deer Park and La Porte.

The valve equipment appears to have been protected by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Energy Transfer has not responded to questions about any other safety protections that were in place.

Officials say they expect the fire to be extinguished sometime Thursday evening.

Authorities evacuated nearly 1,000 homes at one point and ordered people in nearby schools to shelter in place. Officials began letting residents return to their homes on Wednesday evening. Residents could be seen at their homes Thursday morning, assessing damage.

The explosion left Diane and Steve Hutto's home unlivable, with damage from the blast, ceiling insulation debris and water damage from first responders who sprayed the home for several hours to keep it from burning to the ground.

"We don't know where we're going to go," Diane Hutto told CBS News. "...I thought it was a nuclear bomb. I fell out of the chair, the dogs were already out the door trying to get out."

There is a second pipeline located about 100 yards from the one that exploded. And like the one that exploded, the only thing protecting it from a similar fate is a chain-link fence.

Brigham McCown, former administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, told CBS News there are more than three million miles of pipeline in the U.S., more than anywhere else in the world. He believes safety isn't a systematic issue.

"But you are more likely to be struck by lightning twice and win the Powerball than you are to suffer a fatal accident from a pipeline," McCown said.

That is little consolation for the Hutto family.

"You work all this time to make your house what you want it, and the blink of an eye it's gone," Steve Hutto said.

A portion of a highway near the pipeline would remain closed, officials said.

Energy Transfer and Harris County officials have said that air quality monitoring shows no immediate risk to individuals, despite the huge tower of billowing flame that shot hundreds of feet into the air when the fire first began, creating thick black smoke that hovered over the area.