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Read more details about the fire and explosion at Firegeezer.com

On Monday, my friend Firegeezer Bill Schumm was among the first in the fire service media world to tell us about a dangerous incident last Saturday at a drive-thru at a McDonalds in Coachella, California. It involved a pick-up truck with a couple of LPG tanks in the bed that vented during a 100-degree day and caught fire. A short time later the smaller of those tanks exploded, rocketing the larger one 75-feet away. Bill has a complete description and a video of the blast he found on YouTube.

But the video above has a much closer and more direct view of the blast and it shows the actions of law enforcement and/or private security before firefighters arrive on the scene.

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NOTE: Some of our readers pointed out the comments were off on this post and wondered why. A very good question. It was completely accidental and was unknown to the editor until the emails arrived. As of 11:35 PM on 4-18 the comments are on.

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Press release from PGFD’s Brady:

Prince George’s County Firefighter/Medics rescued a worker that was trapped within a large piece of machinery in what proved to be a very challenging rescue. Firefighters and Paramedics were dispatched to an industrial area in the 5400 block of Van Dusen Road in Laurel at about 11:00 am. A worker at a mulch plant had become trapped inside of a machine that is used to inject colored dye into mulch. First arriving Firefighter/Medics found an adult male that had both legs trapped within heavy machinery and very little to no space to move in the machines “hopper.” Access to the victim was only possible by using ground ladders. 

The victim was so entangled in heavy metal machinery that paramedics feared surgical intervention would be required to free the critically injured worker. Paramedics requested a “Go Team” respond to the scene. A GO TEAM is a group of medical professionals that normally work in a hospital environment. When requested, a team of surgeons, nurses, anesthetists and other medical staff will be taken to the scene and if needed do what they need to do to remove the patient from entrapment. 

Additional Fire/EMS Department resources including the Technical Rescue Team, Hazardous Materials Team, a tower ladder and additional engine companies operated on the scene for just over 90 minutes. There were a total of 50 firefighter/medics on the scene. 

A CRNA was first member of GO TEAM to arrive at the scene. Photo by PGFD’s Mark E. Brady.

A Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) was the first member of the GO TEAM to arrive. He was brought from the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Hospital on board Maryland State Police Trooper 2 to the scene. A combination of Fire/EMS Department Paramedics, the CRNA and the flight medic from Trooper 2 worked together to devise the best course of medical treatment for the victim in conjunction with the members of the Technical Rescue Services. 

Parts of the machine were disabled and removed, however, the victim still remained wedged in the machine. The victim was in severe pain and was sedated and intubated. The combination of the removal of parts of the machinery and sedation allowed rescuers enough room to maneuver the victim’s legs out of the machinery without causing additional pain and without surgical intervention. The victim was free of entrapment at about 12:30 pm. 

Once extricated the victim was placed into a stokes basket suspended from the extended bucket of the Tower Ladder from Laurel Fire/EMS Station #810 and control maintained by a rope and pulley system established by the Technical Rescue Team. 

Once on the ground the victim was treated by a combination of Prince George’s County Paramedics, the flight medic from MSP Trooper 2 and the CRNA. MSP Trooper 2 Medevac transported the patient to a trauma center. The victim was still intubated and suffering from critical injuries to both legs. His injuries, while critical, are not considered life threatening at this point.

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Make sure you also check out the video below. It is raw video from a neighboring apartment showing close-up the damage on the lower floors after the explosion. At 2:22 in this clip the major collapse occurs.

DailyMail.uk:

This was the moment a blast ripped through an old Soviet-style block in southern Russia today sending it crashing down like a house of cards.

The nine-storey building in the city of Astrakhan, 800 miles south east of Moscow, collapsed in an explosion believed to be caused by natural gas.

The Moscow Times:

A witness told the news agency (Interfax) that the bottom floors were destroyed initially, followed by those above, causing rescuers to be trapped in the rubble.

"First there was an explosion, approximately in the area of the second or third floor, and the second and third floors collapsed — the wall came down. I saw two people scramble out of there. We crawled in to help, and at that moment the other floors collapsed. I saw two people get buried, and another few who went in there remained inside," the unnamed witness said.

Investigators said the explosion was likely the result of a suicide attempt by a man living on the third floor who had threatened to kill himself on multiple occasions in the past.

RT.com:

­Emergency workers say they have located eight bodies but have so far been able to extract only two. Identification of the bodies is underway. Meanwhile, rescue workers are continuing to sift through the rubble for the missing.

A total of 26 people have so far been rescued. Two children were among 15 people injured. Five remain in hospital, some with serious fractures and other injuries.

The Emergency Ministry has sent a second plane to Asktrakhan bringing more rescue officers and search dogs. The plane is equipped with two medical modules to facilitate the evacuation of the seriously injured.

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NJ Department of Environmental Protection press release

Harford County, MD press release

911 centers in at least four states were getting calls today about an odor of gas that can be traced to an oil spill yesterday at a refinery in Paulsboro, New Jersey.

From WCAU-TV (Philadelphia, PA):

The spill occurred Thursday at 1:15 p.m. from an oil tank at the Paulsboro Refinery Company facility. Refinery personnel discovered the leak shortly before 1:30 p.m. Crews were able to contain the oil before it reached the Delaware River.

The Department of Environmental Protection says the spill is not expected to impact the Delaware River local drinking water supplies. Numerous residents in Salem County , Delaware County, Delaware and Maryland have complained about the smell caused by the spill. Despite this, the DEP says air monitoring indicates the odor should not cause any major health effects.

From WHTM-TV (Harrisburg, PA):

Emergency management officials believe an oil spill at a New Jersey refinery is responsible for gas odors that have been reported in Lancaster and York counties.

Randall Gockley, Lancaster County's Emergency Management Coordinator, said the county's 911 center received several reports of the odor throughout Friday morning and afternoon.

He said fire companies were sent to investigate, but found no gas leaks.

From Arbutus Patch (Baltimore County, MD):

"What people are smelling is the fumes. They are attempting to control it, but the wind is blowing it toward us," said Elise Armacost, a Baltimore County police spokeswoman.

Armacost emphasized that the smell was not a public health hazard and would likely dissipate when the wind changed direction.

From DelMarVaNow.com (Wilimington, DE) :

(Kevin of Del. EMA) Wison said the New Castle County 911 center has received numerous calls about the odor this morning and is asking that people refrain from calling 911 for petroleum odors unless they believe a true emergency exists.

Delmarva Power said it was experiencing a high volume of gas odor complaints because of the oil spill, which is similar to natural gas.

Delmarva is asking natural gas customers in northern New Castle County to recognize that there is a strong outside odor emanating from this oil spill.

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Jason Low, STATter911.com reader and a firefighter at Redwood Meadows Emergency Services in for Redwood Meadows Emergency Services in Alberta, Canada sent us this information about a fire last night at a service station:

Redwood Meadows Emergency Services (RMES) along with mutual aid partners from Cochrane, Springbank, Elbow Valley, Priddis, Madden, and Langdon all worked together to extinguish a gas/service station that caught fire at 8:20pm MST Monday night. Initial reports are that a car being worked on inside the service bays contained gasoline fumes which were ignited by the overhead heater. One person sustained minor injuries.

Bragg Creek's commercial district is comprised largely of unsprinklered wooden structures. The fact that this was held to the building of origin and did not spread to the very close by strip shopping mall and another gas station can be directly attributed to effective water (tanker) shuttles and frequent pre-plan/table-top exercises by RMES.

From ClagaryHerald.com:

A Bragg Creek gas station has been destroyed by a gas-fed fire, despite desperate attempts by fire crews to contain the blaze.

Firefighters spent hours battling an inferno Monday night, sparked inside a garage at the Bragg Creek Husky station on the corner of Highway 22 and Highway 22X.

Residents reported that gas inside the southwest station ignited sometime after 8 p.m.

Click here for a series of still pictures from CalgarySun.com.

From CalgarySun.com:

Rob Evans, deputy fire chief with Redwood Meadows, said the blaze could have been far worse.

“Crews did a great job of saving it from going into the newer mall in Bragg Creek, as well as the old mall, “ he said.

Propane tanks in a cage outside of the gas station were whistling, said Evans — venting and ready to blow.

Evans said the preliminary cause of the fire is gasoline vapours from a vehicle being worked on in the shop at the time, ignited by a unit heater in the ceiling.

Video below by David Schuurman.

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A close call yesterday in West Haverstraw, New York. Firefighters were investigating the rupture of a high pressure gas line by a Verizon crew when there was an explosion that leveled a townhouse and injured two firefighters and two utility workers. The urgent message about the explosion comes from command at 4:49 on the audio above.

The injured firefighters are Gerry Knapp and Ken Patterson of West Haverstraw Volunteer Hose Company #2. As you will read below, Firefighter Patterson also had a close call a year ago.

From WNBC-TV:

Two firefighters were near the townhouse on Zarriello Lane investigating reports of a gas leak when the blast occurred shortly after 12:30 p.m..

“They knocked on the door at 52 Zarriello right before the explosion,”  said Orange and Rockland Utilities spokesman Michael Donovan. “No one answered so we assume no one was home.”

The firefighters were brought to Westchester Medical Center as other first responders battled to get the blaze under control and to contain further explosions. Nearby homes were evacuated after the blast, which leveled the townhouse.

From LoHud.com:

Knapp, who lives near the development and is West Haverstraw’s emergency coordinator, suffered first and second degree burns to his face, West Haverstraw Mayor John Ramundo said. Patterson, who works for the village Department of Public Works, suffered severe burns to a leg.

Patterson, one of the injured firefighters, was nearly killed while fighting a blaze almost a year to the day.

On Jan. 14, 2011, he was inside a home on Westside Avenue that had been illegally converted and became disoriented while searching for potential victims.

He ran out of air inside the burning building and issued a mayday call.

Another firefighter, Andrew Kolesar, found Patterson in the building and rescued him.

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Pictures at AberdeenNews.com

From FirefighterCloseCalls.com:

The fire call came in when caller noticed smoke coming from one of the coal bins at the colony-starting around 0800 hours. The bins, inside the building and hold coal to feed the furnace for a boiler.

Several volunteer firefighters fought the fire, and it was thought the fire had been extinguished.

At 0915 hours the colony Firefighters noticed smoke again, coming from an opening on top of the building.

The two young Firefighters climbed to the top of the 75-foot structure to put out what was still burning. The men were attempting to knock down the fire through the top of the opening onto the coal bin when the explosion occurred. The blast threw both Firefighters from the roof onto the ground.

Debris from the roof landed on top of one of the Firefighters and the other was pinned beneath a concrete wall that had collapsed. The west wall of the building crashed through to the coal furnace, crushing it. The father of one of the Firefighters, was also is a Volunteer Firefighter himself, was inside a lower level of the building during the blast. He emerged from the building dazed, covered in debris and injured.

Firefighters had to use one of the trucks on scene to remove the roof and cement off of the men and one of the colony fire apparatus was damaged in the blast.

Several departments responded to the blast, including the North Marshall Fire Department, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office and, the Sunset Colony Firefighters. As we pointed out last night, in that area-and several “plains” area rural communities in North America, “colonies” of Hutterite people (similar in some respects to the Amish) maintain their own volunteer fire companies. This is one such community.

From the AP:

Two volunteer firefighters died and one was injured after an explosion Thursday morning northwest of Britton.

Marshall County Sheriff Dale Elsen tells the Aberdeen American News that a 20-year-old man and a 21-year-old man had been on top of a structure putting out a fire when an explosion blew off the top and south wall of the building, killing the men.

Elsen said the man injured was the father of one of the men who died. The man was taken to Marshall County Health Care Center.

Elsen said several volunteer firefighters had fought the blaze and thought it was extinguished when the explosion occurred. The 911 call came in at 9:51 a.m.

]]> http://statter911.com/2011/09/16/explosion-kills-firefighter-cousins-in-britton-south-dakota-sunset-colonys-jack-william-waldner-died-after-coal-bin-explosion/feed/ 0 http://statter911.com/2011/08/04/raw-video-one-stubborn-car-fire-in-whitehall-pennsylvania/ http://statter911.com/2011/08/04/raw-video-one-stubborn-car-fire-in-whitehall-pennsylvania/#comments Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:50:02 +0000 dave statter http://statter911.com/?p=22431

This looks a lot like one of those trick birthday candles that you can't blow out. It is actually a Mercedes Benz burning in Whitehall, Pennsylvania yesterday. Here's the description from Bill Rohrer at Newsworking.org:

From KXTV:

It took 124 personnel and 30 apparatus from 15 fire agencies to contain a 6-alarm fire at a plastics company yard in Fairfield Tuesday afternoon. The flames poured thick black smoke into the sky for hours.

The Fairfield Fire Department said it appears plastic barrels burned in the yard of Macro Plastics Inc. at 2250 Huntington Drive. Officials said the fire was started by employees.

No buildings burned and the fire was contained to the company's property, said Fairfield city spokeswoman Gale Spears.

Those within one mile of the fire were directed to shelter-in-place with windows and doors closed and air conditioners off, Spears said. The voluntary shelter-in-place was expected to be lifted at 6 p.m.

Spears said officials have been told by air quality managers the fumes from the burn did not appear to be toxic.

There were no injuries.

Fire crews on the scene said the cause of the blaze appeared to be accidental.

According to the Macro Plastics website, it manufactures plastic bins. Polyethylene and polopropylene are some of the plastics used.

Lonny, who works in Fairfield about one-half mile from the fire, said right around 1 p.m. there was a loud explosion and the windows and doors shook.

Spears urged drivers to stay away from Air Base Parkway. Police officers were directing traffic.

Smoke from the fire could be seen as far east as San Andreas in Calaveras County where News10 reporter Tim Daly was covering another fire.

A tanker exploded last Thursday evening in the Sawyer, Michigan area. Today Chikaming Township has released video of that explosion along with more details.

The incident occurred at a truck stop where the driver had stopped for dinner. News reports indicate the rig was carrying a mixture of sodium hydroxide and water from Illinois to Canada. After dinner the driver noticed vapors coming from the tank.

After police and firefighters arrived and the building was evacuated the tanker exploded. One firefighter suffered minor chemical burns to the face.

Here's more from WNDU-TV:

The tanker was aluminum. (Chikaming Township Fire Chief Mike) Davidson said he cannot say whether that was a safe container to be transporting the substance, but said the matter is under investigation.

He did explain how the tanker exploded, stating that the problem started with a compromised weld joint, and got worse from there. "The tank was not properly venting itself, and it built up pressure inside of the tank to the point where the leak did expand itself and started to hiss and with all the pressure it built up, it finally exploded," Davidson said.