A FIRE at an oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana is being investigated by the US Coast Guard.

The rig is not reportedly drilling at a deepwater site like the Macondo well that blew out in 2010.

That blowout led to an explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the worst offshore oil spill in US history.

The platform is a shallow water platform in the Gulf of Mexico, Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told WWL-TV

It is near West Cote Blanche Bay, south of New Iberia on the south-central Louisiana coast.

Coast Guard officials said the fire had been put out. It was not clear if any oil had spilled from the platform.

Meanwhile, two BP staff charged in the deaths of rig workers in the 2010 blowout claim the US Justice Department is trying to make them scapegoats for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The claims came after BP resolved a sweeping criminal probe of its role in the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lawyers for the highest- ranking BP employees aboard the Deepwater Horizon during the deadly explosion in April 2010 vowed to fight manslaughter charges against their clients.