Video of Tanker Truck Burning Near Rail Cars

Video in earlier this evening from Sioux Center, Iowa of a tanker truck burning next to railroad tank cars. The fire is adjacent to a commercial district. Witnesses reported hearing an explosion and seeing a fireball. Watch the video from KPTH-TV, here. (Update: This link is now dead. Try this one from KELO-TV)

More information from the Des Moines Register saying that about 100 homes and 30 businesses were evacuated. That includes about one-third of the town’s population of 6600.

The early report is that the fire “ignited as a fuel tanker was unloading ethanol in a railroad car at Farmers Co-Op Elevator and spread rapidly”.

And this from the fire department:

“It certainly was a flammable liquid, but there is no certainty it was ethanol,” said David Krahling, public information officer for the Sioux Center Volunteer Fire Department.

The fire was reported at 4:45 p.m. and said to be contained by 7:00 p.m.

Sioux Center is about 45 miles north of Sioux City in the northwestern part of the state. The map shows the railroad tracks paralleling Route 75 through the center of the town.

As I am sure many of you know (but, of course, I only found out from one of the people I had dinner with in Baltimore this past weekend), there are issues with non-alchohol resistant foam and E85. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration “recommends use of alcohol-resistant foam to fight fires involving these fuel mixtures”.

The Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Fire & Rescue Services issued this training bulletin in May. Here’s DOT’s guidance from April, 2006.