Thick, black smoke was seen for miles after a bolt of lightning connected with a water-storage tank, touching off a fire that burned for more than three hours at a Crescent Point oil-producing facility just west of Stoughton early Friday morning.

Lightning struck the No. 9-of-20 battery Crescent Point facility, one kilometre south of Highway 13 on Stoughton's outskirts around 6 a.m. The fire burned until it flickered itself out at 9:30 a.m.

Neil Smith, vice-president of engineering with Crescent Point in Calgary, said the tank was full of water, but what burned was the tank's "hydrocarbon" - the thin layer of oil floating atop the water's surface. The tank stored the recycled water that was pumped into the ground and returned to surface with the oil it displaced

"Normally what you have is a small amount of hydrocarbon - you know how oil floats on water? With the produced water, there is often a filmy layer of hydrocarbon on the surface, and that's what ignited," he explained.

While spectacular-looking to some, Pat Slater, deputy chief with Stoughton volunteer fire-fighting brigade, summed the event up briefly, "Lightning hit, tank blew up, tank burnt down, no injuries."

Slater said because the lightning struck so early in the morning, no one was on-site at the time of the strike. And furthermore, because the oil companies who operate in the area share a "let-it-burn" policy, no one risks injury trying to put the fire out.

"We were there, though," Slater said. "In that case, we just tend to the scene, we make sure nothing spreads, and we make sure no one goes in. That way, there's no way anybody gets hurt."

Smith confirmed this information.

"Our policy is to 'let-it-burn', absolutely," he affirmed. "Our concern is safety, and at that point, injuries were being threatened so we let it end on its own."

Slater said these types of fires are becoming more common due to the increase of oil production activity in the area. He said Friday's blaze represented the fifth fire at a Stoughton-area oil facility in five years.

"It's more frequent because there are more sites around these days. So obviously, when you think about it, that's increased the odds of something like this happening," he said.

Stoughton No. 9 produces 30 barrels of oil-a-day for Crescent Point. Smith was uncertain how the fire might disrupt production, and had no dollar figure on the damage.

Crescent Point Energy Trust, a conventional oil and gas income trust created in September 2003, after the merger between Crescent Point Energy, Ltd. and Tappit Resources, Ltd., focuses capital on "higher-quality, longer-life reservoirs in proven growth areas" and operate primarily in southeast Saskatchewan.