Tank Battery fire near Codell

Don't know the whole story but Rooks county fire department worked a tank battery fire. Burned up a couple fire trucks and sent 4 firemen to Plainville Hospital and one on to Wichita with burns. The other 4 were released at Plainville.


I remember when I was in Jr High there was a tank battery fire East of Ellis. I will always being about 1/2 mile away and it being to hot there.

Edit; always remember being 1/2 mile away from the fire and it was still very Hot.



Thanks Just Too... Ryan Cellmar is getting a skin graft on his hand today in Wichita.

Tank battery fires are tricky. Especially steel tanks. Not sure what they had up there.

nice reply at the other place rat. I know the Voss guy that replied there and I think you both nailed the situation perfectly

I can't believe that one idiot who called the fire crews stupid and said "What could go wrong at a tank battery fire?" A whole lot of things can go wrong. What a jerk.

fiberglass, I heard. Think the tank was full of oil. I guess the fire men rolled up on the fire and the fluid over flowed the safety dike and ran under the pump truck and the bulk water truck and others...and that caught fire. I should read that article.

Hess will replace it for a small fee~lol
Glad everyone is okay of course!

alg8tr wrote:

fiberglass, I heard. Think the tank was full of oil. I guess the fire men rolled up on the fire and the fluid over flowed the safety dike and ran under the pump truck and the bulk water truck and others...and that caught fire. I should read that article.

Fiberglass tanks tend to melt rather than explode but if full of oil a sudden failure of the tank could overflow a pit fast, especially if the pit was already partway full. Kinda tough to call without being there, but if the tank failed suddenly as they were setting up it might be hard to get out of the way. Tanks are never just sitting there nice and easy after a lightning hit. It's hard to say what took place without more info.

Once in Ellis Co. a steel tank failed just as trucks were pulling in. The catwalk flew over the top of a truck and part of the tank landed several hundred yards away.

Guess I was lucky. All pf the tank fires I worked were babysitting jobs more or less.
Never experienced a failure.

That was over by Ellis where the tank blew as the trucks approached. Another South of Ellis vented while crews were on scene shooting flame 20 foot or more and it roared like a jet engine.

It was an old Berexco "Westusing" lease North of Codell Kansas, just South of our Howitt LSE