On November 29, 1988, an alarm was received at 0340 by the Kansas City, Missouri Fire Department indicating there was a fire at a highway construction project. The caller, a night guard at the site, initially stated that there was "a small pickup truck" burning. In the background a woman could be heard saying "the explosives are on fire." The woman was later identified as another guard.'
The caller went on to say 'I... there's a fire on both sides of the highway." Then, in response to the dispatcher asking "What's burning?", the caller said: "Uh, there may be some -- there's some explosives up- on a hill that I also see now is burning."
The dispatcher then directed Pumper 41 to respond to the pickup truck fire. He added: "Pumper 41, use caution on your call. There's information there may be explosives. It’s in a construction area ...'
Pumper Company 41 was dispatched and, upon arriving at 0346, found that there were in fact two separate fires. It radioed dispatch at 0347 to send another pumper company.
When the second company, Pumper 30, arrived, at 0352, at the second fire, which was several hundred yards away, the first company called dispatch and stated that there seemed to be two arson fires and requested that the police be sent. The first-in company also asked dispatch to warn the second company of explosives.
"If you can get 30, tell them there's a trailer on fire up there, stay away from it . . . There's supposed to be explosives involved in this." This was at 0357, five minutes after the second company had arrived. Pumper 41 also asked that a battalion chief be sent "emergency."
At 0359, Pumper 30 asked the dispatcher, "Can you confirm that there is explosives in this trailer or not?" The dispatcher responded, "Pumper
41 advised that, and we have additional information on the original call that there were explosives in that area, use caution."
To recap, at this point, both units had been advised that there were explosives on the scene,and both had acknowledged this. But they had not been told specifically that the trailer was a magazine with explosives, nor what might be on the site. They gave no indication they had seen a placard, nor that they realized the "trailer" was a magazine, nor that they knew the contents. They also did not seem alarmed. The first company extinguished the fire in the pickup truck and proceeded to the other fire to assist the second company. A truck, a "trailer," and a compressor --were on fire at this time (about 0402).
However, as indicated above, they appear to have been aware that there might be explosives in the trailer.
At 0404, Pumper 41 called to Battalion Chief 107, who was en route to the scene: "Apparently this thing's already blowed up, Chief. He's got magnesium or something burning up here." (They may have been seeing sparks from the aluminum sides of the trailer burning.)
At 0408, approximately 22 minutes after the first pumper company arrived on the scene and approximately 16 minutes after the second company arrived on the scene a catastrophic explosion occurred. All six fire-fighters assigned to both companies were killed. The battalion chief and his driver who had just arrived and stopped about a quarter mile away received minor injuries. Their windshield was blown in.
After the first explosion, the battalion chief immediately pulled back and prevented other firefighters from entering the area. A command post was set up at a safe distance.
Approximately 40 minutes later, a second explosion occurred, followed by several minor explosions. The explosions broke windows far from the site and were heard through a wide area.
There were two large craters found where the two trailers had been. The first trailer explosion created a swimming pool-like crater, with a "deep part" 80 feet in diameter and eight feet deep connected to a smaller crater 20 feet in diameter and six feet deep. The second trailer explosion created a crater approximately 100 feet in diameter and eight feet deep.
Information received from the Kansas City Fire Department is that the first explosion involved a trailer/magazine with a split load. One end had approximately 3,500 pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil mixture. The remainder of the load was approximately 17,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate/ fuel oil mix with 5 percent aluminum pellets. The second explosion was a trailer/magazine loaded with approximately 1,000 30-pound "socks" of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil mixture with 5 percent aluminum pellets.
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