Kingman BLEVE Jessica Cousins

The beginnings of hazmat incorporated into the fire service. 11 firefighters and one emoployee killed, several onlookers injured/burned.

The Kingman BLEVE was a catastrophic Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE). This event happened on July 5, 1973 in Kingman, Arizona. During a propane transfer tank car #38214 was leased from Williams Energy Company on the Santa Fe Railroad. The tanker carried 33,000 gals of propane gas which was to be transferred to storage tanks 75 yards away. The incident occurred near the Droxol Gas Western Energy Company bulk plant 2512 East Highway Route 66 in the Hiltop buisness district on Kingmans south side.

The incident began when one of the two employees from Williams Energy Company noticed there was a leak in one of the connections. The employee attempted to tighten it by hitting it with a wrench but a spark was produced and quickly ignited the leaking propane gas on fire. The burning gas escaping the valve progressively heated up the tankers pressure and soon another stream of flames began shooting from the tanker.
Two burning streams of fire shooting from the tank. One horizontal from the transfer valve the other vertical from the safety valve. The flames shot 70-80 ft in the air in a V-shape formation. The two employees jumped from the car, one ran across the street a quarter mile to the Highway Patrol Office and stated that his co- worker was still at the burning tanker
The Kingman Volunteer Fire Company is a combination of 6 career firefighters and 36 volunteer crew operating out of two stations with equipment containing 4 engines and one rescue vehicle. Their station 2 was located half-mile west of the Droxol Gas Distribution plant. They responded to the incident three mins after the call came in and started spraying the car with cool water hoping to prevent explosion.
Kingman fire department responded and started setting up attack lines and a deluge gun to cool the tanker down to prevent from exploding.
Kingman police and Arizona highway patrolman were also establishing roadblocks 1,000 ft from the fire. Two mins before 2:00, just as an order to move people farther back was given, the tanker exploded.

The explosion shook the entire town of 7,500people and the shockwave was reportedly heard and felt up to 5 miles away. A huge fireball over 1,000 ft in diameter was also seen from far away. After the explosion the 3- ton end of the half inch thick metal tanker landed a quarter mile down the tracks and left a 10 ft deep crater where it had been sitting.

Flaming propane sprayed by the explosion ignited several buildings near by. The initial Fire badly burned the two employees, one who died several days later from his wounds. The three firefighters closest to the explosion were instantly killed. Over 90 onlookers gathered at the highway were burned or injured

Severely burned firefighters and patients were airlifted to hospitals in Las Vegas (100 miles northwest) and Pheonix (175 miles southeast)
Other patients were rushed to the Mohave County General Hospitol. Approximately the Hospitol recieved 107 casualties by ambulance, personal cars, police cars, etc.
Planes from the Bureau of Land Management dropped fire retardant and helicopters from Highway patrol and 2 Air Force bases joined to fight the fires and help evacuated the injured

Because of the incident it's now studied in fire department training programs worldwide. After the explosion the fire code became an instant issue and now require all bulk storage tanks to be diked and to have some sort of foam fire extinguisher. Also standard procedure for handling BLEVEs became well known in fire departments. The Kingman BLEVE was the worst firefighter tragedy in Arizona until 2013 when 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots firefighters were killed in the Yarnell Hill fire which was a wildfire caused by lightening

The 11 firefighters killed were William L. Cason, Myron B. Cox, Roger A. Hub ka, Joseph M. Chambers the 3rd, Marvin E. mast, Arthur C. stringer, Christopher G. Sanders, Richard Lee Williams, Frank S. Henry, John O. Campbell, Donald G. Webb, Alan Hensen

The Firefighters Memorial Park in Kingman is dedicated to those 11 firefighters who died in the BLEVE
Years later in rememberance Captain Wayne Davis, the only firefighter in the area who was at the explosion and is still active in the fire department, tells his story. He recalled riding in the tailboard of the 2nd Kingman engine on the way to the scene. The crew responded to the scene and had begun stretching hoselines to a deluge gun when the explosion happened. Davis ducked behind the hosebed but still recieved 2nd degree burns. The Kingman chief at the time, Charlie Potter, was in his pickup truck directing operations when it happened. He ducked down in the seat but Alford ieved both 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his arms and was hospitalized for several days.

Pros and cons: pros would be that the fire department did a good job responding quickly and did a good job working with and coming to get her with a lot of other groups to put the fire out ( bureau of land management, Air Force, etc.) cons I would say they didn't do good enough job setting up zones, they should've looked in the book to see how long the tank took until BLEVE

  • Bib/ citations
  • Http://www.firehouse.com/article/10544591/the-Kingman-rail-car-bleve
  • Http://www.firefighternation.com/article/news-2/Kingman-BLEVE-40-years-later
  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/kingman_explosion
  • Http://kingmanhistoricdistric.com/points-of-interest/firefighters-memorial-park/the-disaster-story.htm

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