1921 — Jan 24, Gasoline Explosion, Parked Rail Tank Car, Memphis, TN — 13
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 5-5-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–13 National Fire Protection Assoc. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003).
–13 Safety Engineering, “Casinghead Gasoline Explosion,” Vol. 41, No. 3, March 1921, p.127.
Narrative Information
Safety Engineering: “At 7:40 a.m., January 24, a…employee of the consignee, Colyar, Reese & Co., Memphis, Tenn., climbed to the top of a tank car loaded with casinghead gasoline and proceeded to remove the dome cover, preparatory to taking a sample of the lading and starting the unloading operation. In his ante-mortem statement he is reported to have said that he followed his previous practice in unloading tank cars.
“Shipments of casinghead gasoline in tank cars began about 10 years ago and the records of the Bureau of Explosives show the recent disaster at Memphis as the sixteenth example of the results that may follow removal of the dome cover while interior pressure exists in a tank car. This removal is prohibited by the Federal regulations for the safe transportation of dangerous articles, and the danger has been emphasized repeatedly in the circulars, lectures and other educational propaganda issued by the Bureau of Explosives. Again the employee who violated the rules paid for his ignorance with his life, and again the employer is confronted with the fact that he violated another important requirement when he failed to make the Federal rule effective in his plant by proper instruction of his employee.
“Col. B. W. Dunn, chief inspector of the Bureau of Explosives, from whose report the foregoing is abstracted, remarks:
The Memphis accident brings forcibly to our attention, once more, the general hazards of gasoline and the danger involved in having large gasoline plants located so close to the main lines of railroads and to inhabited dwellings. The country is full of such hazards and it is impossible now to eliminate them.
“Several explosions followed the escape of vapor and liquid when the cover of the car was unscrewed. According to eye witnesses a column of gas and liquid was forced vertically upward to a height of 100 ft. No fewer than 13 persons lost their lives and 18 were injured…The fires that resulted spread over a wide area, destroying many small dwellings…This bit of vivid description is taken from Col. Dunn’s report:
When the pressure in the tank was partially released by escape of this column of liquid, the remaining liquid in the car continued to boil over the sides of the dome and spread over the ground. Andrew McKinley, who removed the dome cover, had jumped to the ground and with the manager and superintendent of the plant stood momentarily near the office, about 75 feet from the car, looking at the cloud of vapor which the latter stated appeared like a cloud of white steam extending across the street. This cloud was so dense in the air from a height of 5 feet upward that they could not see the buildings on the other side of the street. For the first 5 feet above the ground the air remained clear. The superintendent had heard the escape of pressure while the cover was being removed and looked out of the office just in time to see the cover fly upward and the gasoline gush out. There was a fire in the office stove and he picked up a small bucket of water and threw it on the fire. He then ran across to the garage building for more water, but did not get back to the office with it as by that time a dense cloud of vapor was forming around the office and adjacent space between the plant buildings. The vapor was close to the ground and drifted around the end of the garage building. The superintendent with the manager and employee, who had opened the dome cover, finding themselves surrounded by this vapor, started from a point near the office to run back of the warehouse in a southerly direction. As they turned to run the first explosion occurred in the direction of the block across the street, and about 5 seconds later a second explosion of flash of fire followed, involving the vapor around and between the plant buildings. The clothing of these three men was ignited and one of them, while running, noticed the office building collapse. It is estimated that the first explosion occurred about two minutes after the removal of the dome cover. Fire developed practically instantaneously in the wreckage of the buildings and followed immediately in the oil warehouse and garage building, where it burned fiercely, fed by a large quantity of oils and other inflammable material.
The city fire department responded promptly to an alarm and with little difficulty extinguished the fire in the wreckage of the shattered dwellings, which were already practically destroyed. There were unable to get control of the fire in the warehouse and the plant, and these were entirely consumed.
With the exception of the 3 mentioned employees of the oil company, and the proprietor of a small store on the northeast corner of Front street and Looney avenue, who was injured with the front of his store was blown in by the explosion, the victims were all caught in the area of the block of dwellings between Looney and Saffrans avenues. Aside from several persons claiming to have been knocked down, there were no serious injuries sustained from the force of the explosion, all of the deaths and injuries apparently resulting from burns.
Immediately after the first explosion, victims…from the block of dwellings were running about with their clothing ablaze. The appearance of some of the bodies, badly charred, indicates that they had probably been out in the air and their clothing had been heavily saturated with the inflammable vapors. Some of them probably died from the effects of inhaling the flames. Strong odors of the vapor were noticed before the explosion, but even with this warning it is not probable that any of the victims appreciated the danger in time to escape.
The first explosion to the east of Front Street was evidently due to vapors formed by the column of liquid which was thrown from 50 to 100 feet in the air, and followed the direction of the wind into the space in and around the warehouse and storage tanks. It was vapor from this source that caused the second flash. The first explosion was the most severe in its effect upon nearby houses. The wreckage of the wooden buildings was thrown outward into the streets surrounding the block, and some was thrown westward across Front street and over the top of the oil warehouse.
The oil warehouse contained nearly 50,000 gallons of heavy oils in steel drums and boxed cans. The heat of the fire caused the rupture of many of these packages and the escaping oils added materially to the intensity of the fire. A number of drums and cases of heavy oil and grease stored in the east end of the garage building added to the fire in that building. The seven gasoline storage tanks, containing 70,000 gallons, and located west of the office, were enveloped in flames but did not show any ill effects, although the metal screens were burned out of the vents in three of them. The woodwork about the pump house and elevated storage tanks, about 150 feet from the tank car, was burned and charred.”
(Safety Engineering, “Casinghead Gasoline Explosion,” Vol. 41, No. 3, Mar 1921, pp. 127-129).
Sources
National Fire Protection Association. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003). (Email attachment to B. W. Blanchard from Jacob Ratliff, NFPA Archivist/Taxonomy Librarian, 7-8-2013.)
Safety Engineering, Vol. 41, No’s. 1-6, Jan-June, 1921. NY: Safety Press, Inc., 1921. Google digitized. Accessed 9-22-2017 at: http://books.google.com/books?id=bCLOAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0