PART 6: FIREFIGHTING REVAMPED - We Need Ice - The Kingman BLEVE True Story Artwork

WE NEED ICE - Explosion on the Railroad

July 5th, 1973 - A railcar sits on a spur of the Santa Fe Railroad. For about a month, it has served as a "holding tank" for 33,000 gallons of propane gas belonging to the nearby DOXOL Gas Plant.The time has come for DOXOL employees to retrieve the gas from the tanker to be stored at the plant. But, during the process of offloading the gas, something goes TERRIBLY wrong... The disaster KILLS 12, 11 who were firemen and MAIMS approximately 100 innocent citizens of the small town of Kingman, Arizona. This is the UNTOLD, TRUE STORY of the Kingman Arizona BLEVE of '73, with witness and expert accounts describing every flinching detail from the day of, to the weeks and months after the tragedy that forever changed Kingman, and the world.

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WE NEED ICE - Explosion on the Railroad

PART 6: FIREFIGHTING REVAMPED - We Need Ice - The Kingman BLEVE True Story

June 24, 2022 • Meg Maran • Season 1 • Episode 6

If necessity is the mother of invention, then mass casualties are the catalyst of reinvention. If anything positive was going to come out of this disaster, it was going to be improving practices for managing such events in order to avoid repeating history.

9-11 has been brought up, more than once, with witness accounts of the Kingman Bleve. After September 11, 2001, changes were employed for safer air travel. Similarly, the 1973 Kingman BLEVE influenced protocols for transporting liquid gas, firefighting, and handling explosions worldwide.

The procedural modifications implemented because of the Kingman BLEVE were necessary alterations put in place to save lives.

Visit this podcast's website at WENEEDICE.COM for more on the 1973 Kingman, Arizona BLEVE.

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Meg Maran

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