When confronted with the same type of emergency, local governments at the same administrative level may adopt significantly different approaches to crisis learning, resulting in the phenomenon of “same problem, different responses”. Drawing on 89 production safety accidents, this study employs grounded theory and social network analysis to examine the types of local governments’ crisis learning and their generative mechanisms. The findings identify three types of crisis learning based on different combinations of cognitive, behavioral, and institutional learning: foundational cognitive learning, integrated behavioral learning, and comprehensive overlay learning. Their formation is shaped by five factors: accident attributes, superior-driven factors, social pressure, self-driven factors, and deterrence and punishment. Further analysis shows that superior-driven factors are common to all three types but interact with other factors to produce distinct mechanisms: the “superior-driven and attribute-driven” mechanism for foundational cognitive learning, the “superior-driven and internal-external-driven” mechanism for integrated behavioral learning, and the “superior-driven and self-driven” mechanism for comprehensive overlay learning. Therefore, it is necessary to develop differentiated strategies tailored to different types of crisis learning to improve the effectiveness of local governments’ crisis learning and strengthen crisis management capabilities.