3/31/2016 UPDATE – The Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office says the cause of an explosion and fire is undetermined. Their investigation is complete and they have turned matters over to the insurance company(s).
3/14/2016 UPDATE – Best video yet (however it is one of the workers we saw in a previous video standing too close) showing flame impingement, BOTH 1,000 gallons LPG tanks venting, the BLEVE, and the movement of Tank #2. Most interesting is, as the workers stood within feet of this event, their discussions about evacuating and being accounted for and why the Fire Department was not approaching is shocking. You can hear one young man even claim the tanks will not explode. WARNING! Graphic Language. You need the sound on so we can hear the venting of the tanks, but there is some harsh language.
Source: Andrew Novack
3/13/2016 UPDATE – Video showing the BLEVE damage
This video shows the damage caused by the BLEVE and the resting point of the 2nd LPG tank. The building across the alley is where the tanks were originally located and we can see the location of the 2nd tank. The other videos were shot looking down the alley from the far right in this video. One key item that we do NOT SEE is Tank #1. We also have to look hard to find any jersey barrier that is intact in any way. Tank #2 appears to have moved ~30′ directly perpendicular from its original location.
Press Conference from PIO
A good EARLY explanation of what they believe to have happened… but he mentions BLEVE! Some good aftermath close-up’s
3/12/2016 UPDATE – Video Breakdown with frame by frame breakdown
Last night two new videos surfaced showing the fire around the two propane tanks before the BLEVE and another angle from the BLEVE.
The 1st video was shot from a rooftop across the alley where these tanks were located. This new 15-second video is quite telling, in that it clearly shows that the fuel involved in the external fire was the propane. We can tell this by two distinct measures:
1) lack of heavy smoke tells us the fuel that is burning nearly fully combust (i.e. lack of heavy smoke) and
2) the intensity and duration of the fire tell me it is NOT ordinary combustible stored inside the barriers.
So I would think the Fire Marshal will begin to look to see how the propane was being used and if any type of transfer was taking place at the time of the initial fire. I will also bet that the use of the “jersey barriers” will get a hard look as a “contributing factor” in the BLEVE in that they appear to have played a role in containing the spilled propane and aided the fire to directly contact the pressure vessels. I am aware that the barriers had gaps between them and that they do not form a liquid tight seal against the ground upon which they sit, but they will RESTRICT the flow of any liquid away from the vessel(s). This new video also shows what appears to be a 2-3″ hose extended from the tank(s) to outside of the barriers. This would lead me to investigate if these tanks were being filled by a truck at the time – maybe a drive-off incident or another failure to close a valve incident (like we saw earlier this year in the northeast). We can see the intensity of the fire is on the end where the hose enters the barrier so it MAY have played a role.
The 2nd video is UNREAL as it was shot from within 100′ of the tank and shows workers within 50′ of the tank when it BLEVE’d. It is this video that once again CONFIRMS this was a CLASSIC BLEVE. Using my video editing software I can break the video down into frames and captured this frame, showing us the expanding vapor cloud at the moment the tank fails. Also, take note of the workers standing at the tank!!!!! It is PURE LUCK no one was injured or even killed.
Here we can see shrapnel from the tank flying through the air.
Here we see Tank #2 crossing the alley… It is the circular object just left of the forklift and half way between the forklift and the edge of the pic.
In this next pic, we can tell that the 2nd tank did NOT land upright! From the video and still frames it actually appears it landed with the RV venting downward and the force of the relief propane rotated the tank so that it began venting at about a 45-degree angle. It will be most telling if this second tank had damage to the top of the tank and or its RV. Watch the entire video below and you can see the sequence of events in real-time.
New VIDEO showing the BLEVE and the unbelievable PROXIMITY of workers to the tanks!
We will have to wait for the FM’s report, but it is fun to take what evidence we can gather from pics and videos and begin to form some idea as to what MAY have happened. The FM will have the ability to interview workers, passer-bys, and maybe even use security video to get the full picture. But the one thing we know for certain from the video’s: 1) it was a classic BLEVE, and 2) I am 99% sure it was propane that was causing the external fire that leads to the BLEVE.
Today’s explosion (3/10/16) in Westlake, OH was indeed a BLEVE, as can be seen in the imaged captured here…
The key here – KEEP ALL COMBUSTIBLES and FLAMMABLES AWAY from your Liquified Pressurized Gas vessels! As can be seen in one of the video’s there was a significant fire at ground level at the tank(s) that lead to this event. I do not know what was stored there or how they were ignited, but we should NEVER allow this scenario to even get set up!
A true sign that we had a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE) is the presence of a vapor cloud at the moment the tank catastrophically fails. As seen above in the screenshot of the explosion we can see the large vapor cloud below the flame from the RV vent that was released from the failed vessel. As this cloud grows and dissipates, the cloud falls into its flammable range and we have ignition (all occurring within a second). The fire department stated it all “began as a small fire near two propane tanks, then one tank exploded”. Firefighters let that tank burn out and stopped the leak in the second. Here are two videos showing the fire around the tank(s) with the RV lifted and the release ignited and the actual BLEVE.
What is a FIRST for me is that the BLEVE literally blew the second propane tank about 30′ and it landed with the RV up and allowed that tank to perform as we hoped?
Had that tank landed with the RV down, we could have had a very serious situation ON TOP of the tank that just BLEVE’d. You can see the second tank moving and landing with its RV discharging at about a 75-degree angle on the other side of the road. VIDEO #1 – Initial Fire Impingement on Vessel…
VIDEO #1 – Initial Fire Impingement on Vessel
BLEVE Videos (2)
CLICK HERE for damage pics after the event.
Andrew Novack
The Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office says the cause of an explosion and fire is undetermined.