Town Evacuated, But Bigger Explosion is Averted

BLAKESBURG- A fireball from an exploding fuel tanker truck spurred the evacuation of an entire small Iowa town Friday morning.

The blast happened at about 8:30 a.m. at the Blakesburg Oil Company storage tanks in that small town located about 15 miles southwest of Ottumwa.  Authorities say the driver, identified as Brent Hutzell, was standing behind the tanker truck when it exploded.  Rescuers said Hutzell was thrown at least 30 feet and ran down a nearby street before he collapsed.

Hutzell was taken from the scene by air ambulance to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.  A report on his condition was not available.

Wapello County authorities did not evacuate the entire town of 250 people at first.  But crews got more and more nervous as flames from the burning tanker threatened to spread to nearby fuel storage tanks.

Ottumwa Fire Chief Tony Miller measured temperatures outside one tank at 800 degrees--close to the temperature that could have ignited all the stored fuel.

"It got very close and that's why we had to do what we did with the evacuation.  It was really close," Miller said

Had the larger tanks exploded, it could have flattened or burned nearby homes.  The fuel depot also sits next to a grain elevator that also had flammable anhydrous ammonia tanks outside.

Firefighters ordered everybody out of town after about an hour.  One closest neighbor, Bill Hopkins, feared a bigger blast would take his home.

"They told me if it blew up it (the house) would be gone.  They told us if the tank blew this entire area would be landscape," Hopkins said.

But crews got enough water on the tanks to avert a bigger catastrophe and eventually put out the tanker fire.  Townspeople got to return shortly before noon.

Investigators said something sparked the blast while the tanker was unloading fuel.  But firefighters had no idea what that was yet.