fire, Berlin NY– 10

lornajarrettblanchard July 25, 1962

–10 Bugbee. “Fire Protection Developments in 1962.” NFPA Quarterly, 56/3, Jan 1963, p. 197.
–10 Gardiner, Bob. “Death rolled in on Plank Road. Times Union, Albany, NY, 7-23-2012.
–10 Khan and Abbasi. “Major Accidents in Process Industries…” LPPI Journal, V. 12, 1999.
–10 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
–10 NFPA Quarterly. “Multiple-Death Fires of 1962,” Vol. 56, No. 4, April 1963, p. 316.
–10 Walls. “LP-Gas Tank-Truck Accident and Fire, Berlin, New York.” NFPA Quarterly, 57/1, July 1963, p.9.

Narrative Information

Gardiner: “Berlin — At 5:28 p.m. on July 25, 1962, families gathered for dinner in this eastern Rensselaer County hamlet. The air was muggy, the sky blue with puffy clouds. Then an air horn pulled by a panicked truck driver pierced the air, the first sign that trouble was coming to town.

“The propane tanker truck lost control on a Plank Road hill and crashed, and a massive explosion set buildings on fire and led to 10 deaths, nine by burning. Another 18 were injured, many permanently. “You really couldn’t believe what you were seeing,” Ivan Wager recently recalled as a tear filled his eye. Wager was 27 at the time and had only been a volunteer firefighter for a couple of days. “People were running up to me, some with no clothes, left absolutely fried like they were cooked and they just stood there staring in shock and could not talk,” he said. “I felt I knew the person standing in front of me, but I could not recognize them. It was a nightmare.”….

“The disaster in an area that remains among the most remote in the Capital Region forced nationwide changes in how flammable materials are transported.

“Robert J. McLucas, 39, of Pomeroy, was behind the wheel of his 1959 International tractor hooked to a 45-foot-long Matlack Inc. tanker filled with pressurized liquid propane. He is believed to have gotten off the Thruway at Exit 23, headed to the Vermont Gas Co. in Bennington. But just before 5 p.m., a garage owner in Poestenkill noticed McLucas, who had not made the trip before, pulled off to the side of the road. He was headed east and was looking at a map near the intersection of Main Street and Route 351 in Poestenkill.

“Had McLucas chosen a left turn to north on Route 351, which would get him to eastbound Route 7, a much safer truck route, the tragedy might never have happened. Instead, McLucas went straight through the intersection to the narrow, winding Plank Road over Grafton Mountain. The route that links Poestenkill to Berlin features a couple of miles of steep grades as the road weaves into Berlin. McLucas’ brakes failed, he lost control on the hill and crashed.

“Federal investigators determined that neither McLucas’ route choice nor the brake failure caused the blast and that the tanker should have survived the crash intact. They faulted the tanker’s shoddy construction….

“The disaster happened in an instant. McLucas lost control of his truck, which hit a tree. The impact separated the truck from the tanker and sent the tanker into the middle of the road. It broke open and all 7,000 pressurized gallons of the highly flammable gas escaped. The gas flowed like a tsunami that burst into flames hot enough to melt steel. The heavier-than-air gas moved down Plank Road, over an embankment on the north side of the road into the residential areas of Maple Avenue, Walnut Lane and North Main Street….

“A half-mile away, a barn with two buses inside was ignited and destroyed.

“McLucas, battered by his splintered truck, fell out of the cab. Then the explosion threw him into a back yard. “His face was black,” a witness said at the time. McLucas begged people to take off his shoes and repeatedly apologized for the crash before dying shortly after arriving at Samaritan Hospital….

“The federal Interstate Commerce Commission issued its findings a year after the disaster and said the welds that held sections of the cargo tanker together were inadequate and easily cracked. The commission also found that the tank’s maker used different thicknesses of metal in some parts of the tank to save money when it should have been constructed with one thickness throughout.

“The disaster spurred upgrades in firefighting equipment, communications, disaster coordination and fire scene and crowd control, Wager said.” (Gardiner, Bob. “Death rolled in on Plank Road. Times Union, Albany, NY, 7-23-2012.)

Khan & Abbasi. “Major Accidents in Process Industries…” LPPI Jour., V12, 1999. 75 injured.

Walls/NFPA Quarterly: “At 5:30 p.m., on July 25, 1962, failure of the cargo tank of a tractor-tank semi¬trailer unit resulted in the sudden. and complete release of about 7,000 gallons of LP-Gas. Subsequent ignition., by an. unknown source, of the large vapor-air mixture cloud resulting from vaporiza¬tion of the liquefied gas culminated in the deaths of 10 persons, injuries to 17 others and property damage to 20 struc-tures and 11 vehicles estimated at over $200,000.

“Lessons learned include a need to clarify the requirements for design and fabrication
of a structurally sound vehicle for transportation of LP-Gas and other flammable
compressed gases and a need to clarify routing operational practices to reduce the probability of circumstances which would lead to such accidents….” (Walls. “LP-Gas Tank-Truck Accident and Fire, Berlin, New York.” NFPA Quarterly, 57/1, July 1963, pp. 9-14.)

Sources

Bugbee, Percy. “Fire Protection Developments in 1962.” NFPA Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3, Jan 1963, p. 197.

Gardiner, Bob. “Death rolled in on Plank Road. Times Union, Albany, NY, 7-23-2012. Accessed 3-26-2013: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Death-rolled-in-on-Plank-Road-3725451.php

Khan, Faisal I. and S.A. Abbasi. “Major Accidents in Process Industries and an Analysis of Causes and Consequences.” Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, Vol. 12, 1999, pp. 361-378. Accessed at: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:http://202.38.89.99/Loss_prevention/99503.pdf

National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1

NFPA Quarterly. “Multiple-Death Fires of 1962/” National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 56, No. 4, April 1963, pp. 295-316.

Walls, Wilbur L. “LP-Gas Tank-Truck Accident and Fire, Berlin, New York.” NFPA Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 1, July 1963, pp. 9-14.