Texas City Texas Explosion

On April 16 1947 a small fire onboard a ship call the Grandcamp spread to its cargo which was Ammonium Nitrate (fertilizer) and this was combined with the deisel fuel in the ship and resulted in a large explosion which ignited fires in a local chemical company then to another ship with the same cargo which ignited a secondary explosion. The end result of these explosions was the death of 522 people, 26 of which was the entire local volunteer fire company. This event has been the subject of multiple documentaries on The History Channel and the subject of teachings in various Fire & Rescue classes. The lessons learned set an industry standard for fighting these types of fires. The pictures above show the devestation of the explosion and the responses to the scene. If you note the picture of the ship with guys fighting fire on it, this is the actual supression efforts aboard the Grandcamp. The picture of the firefighter looking back at the camera is rumored to be the last picture ever taken of the fire scene before the explosion. The mushroom and smoke cloud noted in the one picture is from across the bay in Galveston Texas. I have posted links to the anniv. page and the historical archives page, as well as the link to the Texas City Firefighters page.

Please visit these pages and pay your respect to them. The people here set the pace for learning and development in the fire service, as did all of the victims and surviving members/families of each of the events I have been posting about.