LP-Gas Tank Explosion Kills Two Volunteer Firefighters (Carthage, Illinois - October 2, 1997) » Fire Department Response

About 4:39 p.m., a telephone report of the fire was received at Hancock County Sheriff’s 911 dispatch center for a “dryer fire” in the town of Burnside, Illinois. The Carthage Fire Department was dispatched shortly after. Their initial response was the department’s routine rural response assignment to what was thought to be a clothes dryer inside a house. The responding equipment was the high-pressure fog pumper (Engine 11), a 1,600 gallon tanker (Tanker 13), and the rescue truck (Rescue 10). The personnel on the first responding unit, Engine 11, consisted of the Fire Chief (company officer), Apparatus Operator, and a Firefighter. Immediately following was Rescue 10 with three firefighters. Tanker 13 followed shortly after with three firefighters. While enroute, the firefighters received a radio report from the County dispatch center that the fire involved LP-Gas tanks. The firefighters witnessed several openings of LP-Gas tank pressure relief valves from several miles away. Mutual aid was requested at this time from Dallas City/Colusa Fire Department for their 3,000-gallon tanker and from the LaHarpe Fire Department for an engine and a tanker.

Arriving at 4:48 p.m., Engine 11 and Rescue 10 pulled into the south entrance of the circular driveway, parking next to the farm office facing to the southeast. The farm’s owner met the Fire Chief in the driveway and informed him that two 1,000- gallon LP-Gas tanks were involved. The owner’s father also advised the firefighters that nothing involved in the fire was worth taking too big a risk and to not take any chances. The Fire Chief reported that from this position, he was able to see the tank ends, the grain dryer, and field tractor. The dryer and tractor were fully involved and the fire was burning at the two tanks. The Fire Chief and firefighters went to Rescue 10 removed and donned their protective turnout clothing.

A safety relief valve was operating intermittently and the exposure fires ignited the discharged vapors. Witness statements are not consistent regarding which tank’s relief valve operated before the explosion. Before the fire department’s arrival, witnesses indicated that the west tank’s relief valve discharged several times. They also admit that the east tank’s relief valve may have also operated because it was difficult to identify the exact tank. The fire chief believes that he observed the east tank venting at least twice before the explosion. The burning plumes were igniting the side of a wood frame shed next to the tanks.

Asking about the contents of the shed, the owner said that it only contained a few tires and some hay. The Fire Chief walked closer to the fires to better view the situation and develop a plan of attack. Concerned that the west tank was angled towards their position, he noted the east silo would offer some protection from the tanks and would be a better operating position. He walked south of the west silo where he also noted the doors on both sides of the pole shed were open allowing a better view of the tanks and fires.

Returning to the engine, the Fire Chief found the firefighters had already pulled and advanced a pre-connected high-pressure 1 1/4-inch handline toward the fires. He ordered Engine 11 to relocate to the south side of the east grain silo and for Tanker 13 to establish a water supply at that site. Because a pre-connect had already been pulled, the Fire Chief and firefighters had to pick up the hoseline and walk it along the left side and rear of the moving engine to the new position.

Satisfied with the new position, the Fire Chief, who was walking at the left front of the engine, dropped the hoseline as the pump operator engaged the pump. Simultaneously, the two firefighters, who were walking the hoseline behind the engine, continued to move toward the Fire Chief. The rear of the engine was not completely behind the silo and the tailboard was almost in line with the long axis of the east tank. Because the burning dryer, tractor, and tanks were visible from the rear of the engine, the two firefighters, and another not involved with the movement of the engine, likely paused to observe the fire scene through the open doors of the pole shed just as the east tank BLEVE’d.

The tank separated at the weld seam where the north domed head was attached to the long cylinder shaped body. The tank head was broken into two pieces (“clam shelled”) and the pieces traveled north and northeast into a brush and tree covered ravine area about 600 to 650 feet away. The balance of the tank rocketed to the south in a very shallow climb through the pole shed coming to rest nearly 1,000 feet away.

The tank struck several objects as it traveled south including three Carthage firefighters. The wood shed’s six foot high concrete foundation was shattered along the west side from the explosion and the structure was destroyed by the fire. The west LP-Gas tank was thrown into the air passing over the grain dryer and wet grain bin, landing nearly upside down near the tractor which powered the auger that filled the wet bin from arriving trucks. The tank was discharging burning LP-Gas and the tractor caught fire.

The rocketing tank traveled through the pole shed as it proceeded to the south striking two door posts and a pipe rack in the shed. The wood 6-inch by 6-inch northeast door post was torn out from about one foot above the ground to about five feet above the ground. The tank then struck a glancing blow to a large steel constructed pipe rack inside the shed. The pipe rack is believed to have slightly altered the direction of travel causing the tank to turn slightly and out the open door on the south side of the shed. The wood 6 inch by 6 inch southeast door post was splintered from approximately five feet above the ground to just under ten feet.

Immediately on the other side of the shed’s southeast doorpost stood the three firefighters at the rear of the Engine 11. Victim #1 was standing at the left corner of the tailboard and was knocked approximately 50 to 75 feet south. Victim #2, who had been standing to the left of Victim #1, was knocked approximately 130 feet to the south and into the soybean field. Both firefighters received severe traumatic injuries and died immediately as a result. The surviving victim, from the rear of the engine, had been standing behind Victim #1 and fell a few feet away. His injuries were serious and he was air lifted from the scene.

The tank did not strike Engine 11 although the apparatus was physically damaged. The damage consisted of some equipment mounted on the tailboard and the lower sections of the driver’s side mounted ground ladders. After striking the firefighters, the tank continued south over the parked combine until it struck the ground the first time approximately 400 feet away. It continued to tumble and skip for another 600 feet through a soybean field, coming to rest approximately 1,000 feet away from its original position.

The fire chief was thrown to the ground and injured by the force of the explosion or from being struck by a flying object. He was able to request additional mutual aid assistance from the Terre Haute Fire Department, Crop Production Company, and for ambulances. After helping attend to the injured firefighters, he was also transported by ambulance to the hospital. The assistant chief arrived after the BLEVE and took command of the incident. He immediately began an accountability check of the onscene firefighters and farm workers. A telephone call to the Carthage fire station was made for names of responding firefighters. All firefighters and farm workers were accounted for at the end of the process.

On arrival, Tanker 13 set up its 3,000-gallon drop tank off the driveway north of the farm office. Engine 14 arrived and positioned to draft out of the drop tank and to direct its pre-connected deluge gun onto the still burning west tank’s position. The tank was discharging burning liquid and vapor from the connections at the top of the tank. In addition, the field tractor, which powered the auger, caught fire from being sprayed with the burning LP-Gas.

Dallas City/Colusa’s 3,000-gallon tanker shuttled water to fill the dump tank. La Harpe sent an engine and a tanker. The engine led out to a pond located east of the farm buildings and attacked the well-involved wood frame shed. Their tanker assisted in the water shuttle operation. Terre Haute also sent an engine and tanker. Terre Haute firefighters assisted with the shed fire and the tanker participated in the water shuttle. Crop Production Company (private business) supplied a field tanker with two 1,000-gallon tanks, normally used to fill farm equipment, to shuttle water. Hamalton Fire Department filled the Carthage station with an engine company.

The tanker shuttle provided Engine 14 with enough water to cool the LP-Gas tank allowing it to burn out, and to suppress the fire in the field tractor. Until LaHarpe’s engine established a drafting operation from the pond, water supply was a problem on the east side of the fire scene. The fires were confined to the grain dryer, two tractors, and the wood frame shed. Engine 11 did not participate in the fire suppression operations.

In addition to the fires at the farm buildings, a large field fire occurred in a combined (harvested) soybean field about 700 to 800 feet north of the LP-Gas tank position. Although the burned area was searched for an ignition source, nothing could be identified as a cause for the fire. The field was in line with the long axis of the BLEVE’d tank and on the opposite side of the ravine where the broken tank head was found. There was no fire in the ravine and the field fire did not occur until after the explosion.

The Carthage Fire Department report indicated that units returned from the incident at 9:12 p.m. that evening. However, the La Harpe Fire Department provided scene security over night since the investigation of the incident had not concluded. Mutual aid departments provided coverage for Carthage Fire Department alarms from this point until after the funeral services for the fallen firefighters on the following Tuesday, October 7, 1997.

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