Great Balls of Fire

My family had just dropped me off at the garage to pick up my car after it got an oil change, when my cell phone rang. It was my wife letting me know that a truck had just exploded next to her and the boys on the road in front of the shopping center.

She told me they had been stopped at the intersection light when a utilities truck burst into flames right beside her. They could feel the heat from the flames as they sped away. She had called 911 before calling me. “You should take the other way out of the shopping center,” she warned me.

As I was walking out to my car, I saw the black smoke rising above the tall trees around the parking lot and boulevard. I left my car in its parking spot and walked across the lot to the road to see the situation. As I got closer, I could see the orange glow between the tree limbs, and I realized that the fire was bigger than I expected.

I’ve seen one or two car fires before; I’ve even seen a house fire. But when I cleared the trees, and stood about a hundred yards from the utilities truck, I saw the deep orange flames rolling upwards of 100 feet into the sky. Holy moly! I’ve never seen a fire that big.

There was a fire station just up the street from the intersection, and the fire truck and firefighters were already on the scene. Within five minutes of the start, the firefighters had water going on the blaze. In another few minutes, more fire trucks started showing up.

I stood on the street side, with many other gawkers, for about 30 minutes watching the scene. There were two helicopters and a plane circling overhead, and several photographers were capturing the scene for the news. The blaze was huge but I couldn’t tell if the heat I felt was from the fire or from the noon sun. I could smell the gasoline from the burning truck, and I could hear the roar of the water rushing from the fire hoses. The water seemed to be doing absolutely nothing against the fire. The rolling and twisting inferno was hypnotic to watch. At one point, a thin tornado spun off the blaze and twirled off to dissipate in the trees on the side of the road.

I heard the people near me talking about the scene.
“The radio said it was a multi-vehicle accident.”
“If it’s a gas line, why don’t they just turn it off?”
“Was anyone burned?”

When I left, the fire was still raging. In fact, the fire continued for several hours. Workers had been drilling on a concrete median in the intersection and struck a gas line. According to the news, there was no gas line cut-off in the area, so the gas company workers had to literally cut a hole in the road to make a cut-off. All the businesses and stores around the intersection were evacuated, and the area will be shut down for a couple days.

My family, in our van, was about 20 feet away, stopped at a red light when the gas ignited. They felt the heat from inside the van, and when my wife got home, she checked the passenger side for damage (there is none). It was an amazing thing. According to the news, no one was hurt by the fire.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com