An oil industry vessel that was nearby plucked the crewmembers out of the water and brought them to a nearby platform, Coast Guard Petty Officer Thomas Blue said. Coast Guard helicopters were in the process of flying them to a hospital. One of the workers suffered a minor injury, Blue said.
The crew had donned brightly colored survival gear known as "Gumby suits" that helped them float and made them more visible.
The explosion and rescue attempt were reminiscent of the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which was triggered by a blowout from a newly drilled oil reservoir. The resulting oil spill lasted nearly three months and became the nation's worst off-shore environmental disaster in history. Eleven workers died in that blast.
Thursday's fire was partially contained by a vessel sent to the scene by the platform's owner, Mariner Energy of Houston. Two more firefighting vessels were on the way, Blue said.
It was not clear whether Thursday's explosion was the result of a blowout or whether it had caused any leaks of crude oil, Coast Guard Commander Cheri Ben-Iesau said. The platform was not producing oil or gas because it was undergoing maintenance, according to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Mariner Energy's website describes itself as "one of the leading independent oil and gas exploration and production companies in the Gulf of Mexico."
The explosion was reported at 9:19 a.m. by another nearby rig. The blast occurred 92 miles south of Vermilion Bay, La., which is to the west of New Orleans and the Mississippi River Delta. It is also about 200 miles west of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The rescue was aided by decent weather, and Coast Guard helicopters had been able to locate the workers relatively quickly, Ben-Iesau said. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats were dispatched to the site.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the platform was not a deep water rig like the well that blew out in April. He said the water was about 340 feet deep. The Deepwater Horizon rig had drilled in water about 5,000 feet deep.
The situation appears to be very different than the one that hit BP, said Philip Weiss, an analyst at Argus Research. The rig was working in shallow water, and there are no signs yet of any spill. Still, he said offshore critics may still use it to argue against offshore drilling. Within minutes of the first reports of the explosion, that was happening.
"This is one other piece of evidence that demonstates the human and enviroment risks of our appetite for offshore oil," said Susan Farady, director of the Marine Affairs Institute at Roger Williams University School of Law. She said there's been more than 800 offshore explosions and fires in the Gulf since 2001 and 55 deaths.
Others say Mariner's incident further underscores the need for the government's six-month moratorium on deepwater exploration, which is due to lift by December, but which has shutdown deepwater exploration in the Gulf, and much of the shallow water operations, too, since April.
"It's another reminder that drilling accidents happen all too frequently," said Oceana senior campaign director Jacqueline Savitz.
Mariner's safety record in the Gulf, based on federal fines, has been largely unnoteworthy. Last year, it was fined $55,000 for two incidents in the Gulf of Mexico, records from the former Minerals Management Service indicate. In one, it was fined $20,000 because a helicopter platform was taken out of service due to a fire. In another, it was fined $35,000 after an inspectors cited it for lacking adequate contingency plans for an operation.
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