Things that go KA-BOOM

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to cheat tonight.  I have been so busy out enjoying the dwindling days of summer I have missed several days without posting any new stories.  I think most of you who follow my blog know I have a book about my firefighting adventures in the works.  I'm going to steal one story that I have worked up for my upcoming book for tonight's post...

One  afternoon, I was lounging around my house watching TV when I heard a great big KAA-BOOOOM from outside. All the windows in my house rattled hard and my dog started barking. Not being able to tell exactly which direction the noise had traveled from, but knowing something somewhere had blown up, I calmly put on my shoes and headed for the fire station. Within a few minutes, half a dozen other fire guys had shown up at the station too. Suited-up in our smelly turnout gear and ready to roll, there we all sat in the fire engine with the engine running. Not knowing where to go yet or what kind of call we would be going on, but certain that we would be flying out the door as soon as dispatch gave us directions. Sure enough, a minute later, my mom, the I.V. Fire Department dispatcher, announced over the fire radio, “Stations 1 and 4 respond to an EXPLOSION” —hmmm, that wasn't too helpful because we all knew that part already. Before she had even finished the rest of her instructions, we were racing out the bay doors and heading in the direction she had given us. Knowing the address location, we knew it was at least ten or twelve miles away, as the crow flies, from our station. None of us could resist imagining how big the hole in the ground was going to be. But we also began wondering if there was going to be anymore of the stuff that exploded still left to explode after we got there.


Our destination was the old, gold mining town site of Holland. Turning the wide corner into the big parking area in front of the rustic Holland Country Store, I saw fiberglass insulation hanging from the huge, historic, oak trees nearby. Before we had come to a full stop, I saw an older man stumbling around in the glass-strewn parking lot. His hair was frazzled-looking and his clothes appeared to be a bit singed. Near the old store we saw what was left of a travel-trailer. Each wall had been blown in different directions off the trailer a very long ways, leaving behind a trail of debris. The roof of the trailer had launched up in the branches of one of the old oak trees with scads of insulation hanging from the surrounding forest like colorful Christmas decorations. It was obvious that this travel trailer had blown up, but there was no smoke or fire upon our arrival.

Before the fire engine had even braked to a complete stop, I was out the passenger side door headed for the injured gentlemen to assess his injuries. Running up beside him, I lead him over to a nearby stump and carefully help him sit down. I asked him if he is hurt, but he couldn’t hear me because he had lost much of his hearing ability due to the explosion. So I ask him again louder,  “ARE YOU HURT?”  He sort of looks himself over and patted a smoldering spot out on one of his coat sleeves before saying, “NO.”  I assumed he had been walking around in the stores parking area when the trailer exploded. I ask him,  “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN IT WENT KA-BOOM?"  He slowly looked up and pointed to a couch still sitting on the flattened trailer house floor—the only thing left in the trailer. I said,  “YOU WERE INSIDE THAT TRAILER?  He slowly nodded, yes. I say  “DAMN, YOUR LUCKY TO STILL BE ALIVE!”  He turned to me and slowly said,  “WELL, I DIDN’T WANT TO BE.”

Come to find out, this crazy, old coot had been trying to commit suicide and he had gone to some trouble to do it. He had taken the two propane bottles off the front of his travel trailer and taken them inside with him. He then took the time to blow out the pilot lights on all the propane appliances in the trailer because of coarse he didn’t want to blow himself up, he just wanted to asphyxiate himself and peacefully die in his sleep. After opening the valves on both propane cylinders and began releasing the propane gas, he lays down on the couch he intended to be his final resting place. The escaping gas, being heavier then air began filling the inside of the trailer with the propane from the floor upwards. The propane gases slowly rose in the trailer until they reached him lying on his couch. He told me the fumes caused him to begin to gag uncontrolably—a serious miscalculation on his part. He surmised that he would just pass-out and it would all be over soon. Another problem with his ingenious plan was that he had forgotten to blow out the pilot light on the counter-top refrigerator. The explosive gases kept rising till they reached the refrigerator's pilot light flame and then, KA-BOOOOM!!! You could see where there had been concentrated heat; his hair was singed and he had no eye brows left. Some plastic items had melted, but, for the most part, the fire had blown itself out when the explosion exhausted the propane fuel. Luck, or not, he had been lying right in the eye of the firestorm.

I think he ended up going to the Veterans Mental Hospital in Roseburg

I still have some work to finish before I can have my book printed so keep your eye out this next winter or early spring for "I Put the Wet Stuff on the Red Stuff".