As of late Wednesday afternoon, the price of a gallon of gas in the local area was holding at $3.75 per gallon.

However, a national organization that closely monitors gas prices in all 50 states said on Wednesday that motorists across North Carolina should be aware of the likelihood of a sharp rise in gasoline prices in the next few days and the weekend.

“I expect stations to increase prices as much as 5-20 cents per gallon by the conclusion of the weekend with some stations starting to raise prices immediately,” says Patrick DeHaan, GasBuddy.com Senior Petroleum Analyst.

DeHaan warns that a fire at a BP refinery in Washington state is boosting prices significantly throughout the entire West Coast region, and rising spot prices in the Great Lakes area boosted prices 30-45 cents per gallon on Wednesday in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky. Prices have also been reportedly rising fast in New England, Florida, and areas of the East Coast.

Gregg Laskoski, Petroleum Analyst also cites the refinery fire in Washington for an expected jump in California, saying “prices across the State of California already made significant advances in the prior seven days, and with the refinery fire, motorists should expect prices to rise in similar fashion as last February when the Libyan situation unfolded.”

GasBuddy operates NorthCarolinaGasPrices.com and over 250 similar websites that track gasoline prices at over 140,000 gasoline stations in the United States and Canada. In addition, GasBuddy offers a free smartphone app which has been downloaded over 20 million times to help motorists find gasoline prices in their area.