Number 9 Texas City Disaster The 1947 Texas City disaster
culminated in one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in recorded history. SS Grandcamp,
a military cargo ship, caught fire while docked in the Port of Texas City. Her cargo, roughly 2,300
tons of ammonium nitrate, ignited. The resulting blast was catastrophic. Almost 1,000 buildings
on land were raised to the ground. Nearly 7 tons of the ship’s steel was blown away in a rain of
incandescent shards, some of which travelled at supersonic speed. The blast was so powerful that
the Grandcamp’s anchor was hurled across the city. The ships explosion was the first occurrence in a
chain reaction of fires and explosions triggered in nearby oil-storing facilities and other docked
ships. The Texas City volunteer fire department was battling the shipboard fire when the first
blast occurred. All but one member of the 28-man department was killed. 3 out of 4 members of the
Texas City Heights Volunteer Fire Department also lost their lives. All 4 Texas City fire engines
were turned into mangled, burnt husks. Ultimately, roughly 200 firefighters, from as far as Los
Angeles, joined in the effort to bring down the blaze. Fires kept burning up to a week after the
initial explosions while recovery of the bodies took nearly a month. With at least 581 casualties,
the Texas City Disaster is considered the worst industrial accident in American history. The
scene left behind by the explosions was compared to the aftermath of the Nagasaki atom bombing.
Number 8 Siberian Smokejumpers In 2012, a wildfire broke out
in a forested area of the Republic of Tuva, in southern Siberia. Because of the remote location,
a team of 14 firefighting paratroopers, commonly known as smokejumpers, was dispatched from a
forest security airbase. They were equipped with backpack fire extinguishers and small power pumps.
After they reached the ground, their mission was to control the blaze, which was expanding rapidly
because of strong winds. Unfortunately, only six of the paratroopers survived. The others
became trapped, surrounded by inescapable walls of fire. In the tragedy’s aftermath,
flags were flown at half mast, all over Tuva. A Siberian emergency center reported that the blaze
was a consequence of irresponsible fire handling practices by the region’s inhabitants.
Number 7 2015 Tianjin Explosions In August of 2015, a series of explosions
ravaged a container storage station at the Port of Tianjin, the largest port in Northern China.
The most intense of the explosions involved the detonation of about 800 tons of ammonium nitrate,
which is a rough equivalent to 256 tons of TNT. The resulting fireballs rose hundreds of feet
into the air. The event was powerful enough to be registered by earthquake-measuring equipment
as well as by a Japanese meteorological satellite. Fires caused by the initial blasts
burned from the 12th of August into the 15th, when eight more explosions occurred. Over 1,000
firefighters were dispatched to the site and some were caught by the high-intensity blasts.
Others perished while tirelessly combating the blaze. Out of the 173 registered fatalities
of the Tianjin explosions, 104 were firemen. 11 police officers also perished
in what’s been described as the worst incident for the country’s front line responders
since the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1949. An investigation concluded,
in 2016, that the explosion which triggered the devastating incident had been caused by
an overheated dry cellulose container. Number 6 Bombay Dock Explosion
On April the 14th of 1944, the SS Fort Stikine freighter exploded at Victoria Dock, in Bombay,
present-day Mumbai. It was carrying a mixed load which included roughly 1,400 tons of explosives,
such as torpedoes, mines and shells. A fire broke out on the ship and dock side fire teams,
assisted by fireboats, pumped about 900 tons of water into the vessel. Due to the intensity of the
blaze, the water started to boil on the ship. Unfortunately, the fire couldn’t be contained
and two earth-trembling explosions followed. The first broke the ship in two and shattered windows
up to 7.5 miles away. The second sent showers of burning debris into the slums nearby.
Nearly a dozen ships at dock were destroyed while some of the city’s most economically significant
areas were wiped out. 800 to 1,350 citizens were killed. Firefighters from the Bombay brigade
bravely battled the raging blaze for three days, before it was finally brought under control. 71
firefighters lost their lives while relentlessly working to save the citizens of Bombay, of whom an
estimated 50,000 were abruptly left homeless. The headquarters of the Mumbai Fire Brigade
has a memorial honouring the firemen who died. Number 5 Great Fire of 1910
In 1910, on the weekend of August the 20th to 21st, one of the most catastrophic wildfires in
the history of the United States broke out in North Idaho and Western Montana
which extended to parts of Washington and British Columbia. The winter and spring of that year had
been extremely dry and the summer unprecedentedly hot. Up to 3,000 independent fires, emerging from
various sources, were burning by mid-August. Then, on the 20th, hurricane-level winds grouped them
into one or two enormous blazing infernos. Firefighters from the US Forest Service
heroically combated the monstrous firestorm, which was virtually impossible to control with
the resources the service had at the time. 3,000,000 acres eventually burned down,
an area 1.5 times larger than the island of Hawaii. Smoke clouded the sky hundreds of
miles out into the Pacific Ocean. At least 78 firefighters perished in the initial disaster,
while others would later succumb to the smoke damage sustained by their lungs. Outside of Avery,
Idaho, an entire 28-strong team was tragically overcome by massive walls of flames. The Great
Fire of 1910 would eventually highlight firemen as national heroes and raise public awareness towards
nature conservation. Number 4 Kingman Explosion
On July the 5th of 1973, a powerful explosion occurred in Kingman, Arizona,
which led to the death of multiple firefighters. A railroad tank car was transporting propane,
when a hairline crack in its structure caused a leak. Static electricity then generated a spark
which ignited the leaking gas which was odorless. The railroad car basically became a giant
blowtorch. The liquid propane inside started to heat up rapidly, thus increasing pressure inside
the tank. The Kingman Fire Department arrived on site and prepared a deluge gun, a high-capacity
water jet, with the intention of cooling the car. Tragically, they’d never get the chance to use it.
The tank reached its bursting limit and the car exploded. In an instant, thousands of gallons of
boiling liquid propane turned to gas, due to the sudden pressure drop, and simultaneously ignited.
A fireball, roughly 1,000 feet in diameter, rose to the sky and the explosion’s shockwave was heard
and felt across a 5-mile radius. 3 firefighters perished instantly while 8 others succumbed to
their burns shortly thereafter. A state trooper and a railroad worker were also killed in
the explosion, while up to 90 onlookers who’d gathered on the highway were burned or injured.
Number 3 Chicago Union Stock Yards Fire In December of 1910, a fire broke out at a
warehouse of the Chicago Union Stock Yards. First reported in the early hours of December the 22nd,
the fire was rapidly listed as a 4-alarm blaze, meaning that multiple units were required to
control it. By the morning of December the 23rd, when the fire was put out, seven hook and ladder
companies along with 50 fire engine companies had been called to the scene. The most tragic
incident involving the massive firefighting effort was when a flaming building collapsed,
killing 3 civilians and 21 firefighters, including Chief James J. Horan, who were all inside it at
the time. In 2010, a memorial was raised near the location of the fire, to commemorate the
heroic firefighters who perished in the disaster. Today's topic was requested by Peter Jermyn. If
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the comments section below Number 2 Mann Gulch Fire
Smokejumpers are the tip of the spear when it comes to remote wildfires,
as they provide a vital initial attack. It’s a dangerous trade that combines parachuting with
firefighting in rough terrain and, sometimes, against overwhelming odds. On August the 5th
of 1949, a team of smokejumpers parachuted to a valley in Montana’s Helena National Forest,
where a wildfire had been reported. The 15-strong first response team met up with a
former smokejumper who worked as a fire guard, at a campground in the Mann Gulch area. With each of
them carrying almost 100 pounds of equipment, the brave firefighters closed in on the raging blaze.
As they did so, sudden high winds caused the fire to expand rapidly. The smokejumpers were
forced into an uphill retreat. A blow-up of the fire then covered 3,000 acres within minutes. 12
smokejumpers and an additional firefighter were caught in the flames. It would become
the fire with the greatest toll of smokejumper deaths. The youngest member of the crew,
17-year-old Robert W. Salle, was among the three survivors. After it had spread to 4,500 acres,
550 men worked for five more days before the Mann Gulch fire was finally brought under control.
Number 1 Great Kantō Earthquake Firestorms Aside from tsunamis and landslides,
the horrors involving the Great Kantō Earthquake were also marked by enormous fires. On September
the 1st of 1923, the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu was struck by a 7.9
earthquake. It occurred during lunchtime, while people were cooking meals over fires.
Uncontrollable blazes broke out immediately after the earthquake and, at the same time,
a strong typhoon brought high winds to the Tokyo Bay. The currents connected the localized blazes
into devastating firestorms. In downtown Tokyo, a depot was struck by a catastrophic fire tornado.
About 38,000 people, who’d taken shelter there, were incinerated within minutes by the flaming
vortex. Firemen were dispatched all-over the city and a number of them fell victims to the inferno
that had gripped Tokyo. The earthquake had broken water mains all over the city, which complicated
their fight against the blaze. It took two days of continuous work in hazardous conditions before
the fires were put out. There isn’t a reliable figure for the total number of firefighters
claimed by the disaster, which yielded, by most estimates, up to 140,000 fatalities.
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