Truck go boom...

[willie-pete]

6 hours ago, Silentpoet said:

Reportedly the driver was trying to unhook his truck from the trailer when it blew.  This is somewhat local to me. 

 

I don’t know the law in AR, but in WV, the responding fire dept is the Incident Commander, even if the State Police is there.  We would have never allowed anyone to approach that situation.

My guess then is the FD showed up and could not convince the guy to retreat.  He evidently didn’t know the hazards of burning AN or didn’t have insurance on the truck.

 

The Texas City disaster, of course, was caused by AN.

[deputy tom]

Prayers sent for the driver and his family. Also for the injured fire fighters. tom.

Edited March 31, 2019 by deputy tom

[railfancwb]

Halifax explosion...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

Texas City explosion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

Thus one, at least, was ammonium nitrate - some 2200 tons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SC Tiger]

On 3/29/2019 at 4:00 PM, willie-pete said:

When you mix a presumed flammable liquid with what I also presume is no inerting of the vessel and a glass-lined reactor that cannot be grounded; that is generally the end result.

Notice he is busy at the manway doing something like adding materials or taking a sample. More than likely something sparked at the manway and there was a flammable mixture in the vessel.

If you really want the Bejesus scared out of you, look into a glass lined reactor full of flammables while the agitator is running with the lights out. You will see little lightning bolts dancing around inside the reactor. The only thing that saves the explosion is nitrogen inerting in the vessel; therefore no flammable mixture can build up.

We had a flash fire at the manway one day doing essentially the same thing. Fire squirted out the manway which wasn’t completely dogged down. It got sucked up the exhaust piping and caught organics that had stuck on the internal ductwork.

I was fighting the fire on the roof from a ground monitor and saw things fling out of the exhaust piping. Looking at them later, it was melted parts of the bronze exhaust fan impeller.

 

But I'll bet those exhaust pipes were clean as a whisle after that!  

On 3/30/2019 at 10:51 AM, Silentpoet said:

Reportedly the driver was trying to unhook his truck from the trailer when it blew.  This is somewhat local to me. 

Damn.  Must have been an independent with no insurance.

[willie-pete]

3 hours ago, SC Tiger said:

But I'll bet those exhaust pipes were clean as a whisle after that!  

 

Well, the parts that didn't melt were. Brass melts at about 1700 F.  We had a nice little blast furnace going there for a while ( until the blaster melted ).

 

 

 

 

The fire chief was really PO's at me. I put out three fires by myself in the 14 years I was there.  He didn't put out any.

Edited April 1, 2019 by willie-pete

[Moshe]

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2019 at 4:50 PM, willie-pete said:

 

I don’t know the law in AR, but in WV, the responding fire dept is the Incident Commander, even if the State Police is there.  We would have never allowed anyone to approach that situation.

My guess then is the FD showed up and could not convince the guy to retreat.  He evidently didn’t know the hazards of burning AN or didn’t have insurance on the truck.

 

The Texas City disaster, of course, was caused by AN.

Well, he doesn't have to worry about that anymore.  Nor, a casket whatsoever.