Where my parents live there was a family who went on Vacation and had a fire at their house and it blew up their propane tank. The explosion was so severe the school across the road literally had some of its windows shattered and the front doors that were facing towards the house were smashed open from the air pressure. The house was basically deleted/levelled.
People 20 miles away heard the explosion.
It was later found out it was arson for insurance fraud but that's besides the point.
Back when I was a firefighter one of the first things you always check is for a propane tank and a shutoff valve. Then the power company gets called to disconnect electricity depending on where the fire is and how involved the fire is.
You learn a lot about the utility services feeding the house or you put yourself in a lot of danger by not knowing the difference between high voltage and communication wires. Not knowing there’s a huge propane tank feeding gas into the home. That kind of stuff. A lot of things can explode once fire is involved.
I had a house where a propane tank exploded in the middle of the night right down the street from me. But I didn't hear anything. It was the middle of the night but I was up and I smelled this intense burning smell in my house. After looking around the house sure something has caught fire I eventually wandered outside and saw what looked like a three or four story tall column of fire shooting straight up from a house. The way the neighborhood was set up it was actually easier for the firefighters to set up on the other side of the wall that divided the community from the rest of town, so I just saw these big streams of water coming out of the dark and hitting the house. They'd set up on cherry pickers with water cannons attached to them. I have no idea how long it was going before I noticed it.
I found out later that it had been a fire in the kitchen, they had a propane tank on there probably for a grill or something, and it exploded. The mom managed to get two kids out by one teen boy didn't make it. Horrible tragedy.
And I didn't hear anything. This was right down the street from me so I have no idea how there was an explosion and I didn't clock it at all.
Look up a BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion). It's what happens when a tank --- like a large propane tank -- is exposed to fire. The liquid inside starts rapidly boiling and converting to gas, and eventually is doing so at a rate higher than the emergency pressure relief valve can handle. Pressure inside the tank starts to build, while at the same time a portion of the tank wall is being weakened by exposure to the fire. When it finally ruptures, BOOOOOOOM.
One that is commonly used as an example/case study in fire service training classes happened about 25 miles north of me back in 1998. 1,000 gallon propane tank.... they found one of the end caps of the tank over 3/4 mile away. Killed two firefighters.
Yep, there was a house about a half mile from me that had a shed catch fire and it had just a couple one pound propane tanks. Even from that distance and through the trees it rattled our windows and doors and was loud as hell.
Yea, but how big was that propane tank, then? I've got a 100gal tank for supplemental heat, and there's no way it would cause a "weather event". If it's showing up on radar, that's gotta be a tanker, right?
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u/Wonderful_Sock_6651 1d ago
It's entirely possible it was a propane tank.
Where my parents live there was a family who went on Vacation and had a fire at their house and it blew up their propane tank. The explosion was so severe the school across the road literally had some of its windows shattered and the front doors that were facing towards the house were smashed open from the air pressure. The house was basically deleted/levelled.
People 20 miles away heard the explosion.
It was later found out it was arson for insurance fraud but that's besides the point.