ANALYSIS OF KANSAS CITY PETROLEUM BULK PLANT FIRE 1959 46574

“Analysis Of Bulk Plant Fire” is a black-and-white film created by the American Petroleum Institute circa 1960 and narrated by John A. Ainlay. The film begins with news footage from a 1959 petroleum bulk plant fire in Kansas City, Missouri, and an explanation of events that led up to the fire. (The accidental fire began, we are told at mark 02:58, as gasoline was being transferred into a tanker. The fire spread to the service station and adjacent tankers.) Six firefighters were killed. The news footage (from local station KMBC begins at mark 05:07, with one of the station’s newscasters providing a narration as thick, black smoke chokes the air and crews desperately worked to extinguish the blaze. A fireball fills the screen at mark 07:51 as the flames reach a tanker. The news footage ends and at mark 11:30, Ainlay reminds the viewer that the events were “an unbelievable coincidence” of events that led to the catastrophe, and at mark 12:12 retraces and carefully analyzes each step that led to the fire. The film also examines new measures that could avoid similar disasters, including pressure-release devices, which are demonstrated beginning at mark 19:10.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference."
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFi...

[@blackbird_actual]

The news today gets criticized for overdramatizing disasters, but man the reporting was back then was grim. There's no way you'd see news stations today talking about "the screams of burning firemen haunting men's memories" as footage plays of a huge blaze engulfing a crowd. Also, showing footage of firemen fighting the fire and saying flatly "they would later die" seems a bit too morbid for today's TV news.

[@davidcarroll8735]

18:55 BLEVE is now a well defined and planned for in order to prevent and subsequently the impacted zone. Great video, thanks for sharing

[@captaintoyota3171]

Wow kmbc still exists in Kansas City. I had no idea about thos and i've lived in K.C. for a long time. wow i've drove by there a hundred times had no idea

[@davidcarroll8735]

16:00 a pre-plan for the property would have had to included a specific identification of the tank shutoff valve at the tank and plan to breach the wire fence and cover with a fog pattern moving forward.

[@PeriscopeFilm]

Thanks for your comments!

[@RonJohn63]

4:43 "A chain of highly unlikely events, *all of which had to happen" seems to be behind every major catastrophe.

[@rdfox76]

It's the nature of major disasters; engineers design things to make disaster as hard to have happen as possible. If one link in the chain of failures doesn't happen, then the disaster becomes a minor accident--or is stopped entirely, and we never even know that anything went wrong at all.
By designing systems so that normal, proper functioning is their simplest, most natural state, the dangers of disasters are massively reduced. For example, airplanes are designed such that, if they're moving at the proper airspeed, they *will* fly rather than fall, and would have to be actively driven into a situation where they stop flying and just fall out of the sky, either by deliberately letting airspeed get too low, or by deliberately forcing them into a steep high-speed dive that eventually overstresses the airframe and causes important parts to break off. As a result, even if all engine power is lost, a properly-flown airplane can be landed gently; typically, they can glide ten miles horizontally for every mile they descend without power, which gives the pilot an opportunity to choose a suitable site for the forced landing. If the pilot doesn't screw up and let airspeed decay to the point the airplane stalls (i.e., stops flying and starts falling), and they're not, say, over the middle of the ocean with nowhere to land, then all you get is a third-page news story about a plane making a successful forced landing in some farmer's field somewhere. It's when the pilot DOES screw up--or some other factors leave him with no options--that you get front-page news.
Disasters happen when things go wrong at exactly the worst possible time, and usually in ways that cause a string of side-effects that nobody thought to be possible.

[@jeromewade4110]

And how did you come to that conclusion,RonJohn63?

[@RonJohn63]

@@jeromewade4110 read the *first* paragraph of the other comment in this thread.

[@jimmykjazz]

I wonder how many law suites were filed. I was 10 years old when this happened. I lived maybe 5 miles east of the fire. I oblivious to it.

[@usncorpsman7966]

I was 7 yrs old when this happened. I remember because my Dad worked at Owens-Corning Fiberglass down the road. Mom was taking him to work that day and I was in the car with them Dad talked about it for some time. Tragic loss.

[@leanajo754]

Now, he did mention about the cigarette lighter. Did one of the men was smoking that ignited this? That's what sounded to me.

[@davidvonkettering204]

I just found this sweet little piece of propaganda!
Love,
David