Inspection Detail

Inspection: 314572660 - Titan Propane, Llc Dba Northern Energy

Inspection Information - Office: Sacramento District Office

Investigation Summary

Before noon on August 23, 2011 an employee, the district manager, was on top of a railroad tank car located on a private rail spur at the private facility. He was taking measurements and running checks on the extremely flammable liquid propane inside the rail car tank, prior to unloading it, when some liquid propane gas, LPG, being released flashed causing a fire. The measurements and checks had been done by a coworker on the first three of the four railcar tanks each containing a reported 29,000 gallons of LPG. The first railcar tank had been unloaded that morning. After change in sift, the employee climbed up on the fourth and last 13 to 15 foot tall railcar tank, opening the dome on top of the manway, a protective housing that contains tank valves and gauges, in the middle of the 67 foot long by 10 foot wide railcar tank. Using a stainless steel wrench channel locks, pliers, standing on the north side of the manway, the employee, bending over, moved to each gauge or valve and opened a metal plug or cap, performed his observation and then put the cap or plug back on and tightened it. The process involved gauging the amount of propane in the tank, measuring the temperature, and lastly, unscrewing a steel plug from the sampling valve and taking it out and then opening a small sampling valve handle on top of the valve to allow liquid propane under pressure to shoot out of the port to detect if the propane is odorized and also to check water vapor. The water vapor was checked by looking for white crystals as the liquid propane under pressure hits the inside of the round, bowl-like steel manway and started to fill it. It was after the employee had opened the small sampling valve, stood up waited until he got the necessary information and was in the process of bending back down to close the valve that the propane in the manway flashed. The employee received first and second degree burns to his arms and leg. When the rail car tanks were unloaded or loaded they were connected by a large bonding strap from the loading tower to a connection point on the tank car. This was done because while the tracks and the wheels of the tank car were grounded that can stop at the insulated bearings. As this railcar was being checked and not unloaded, at the time of the fire, it had not been hooked up by this bonding strap. The employee at the time of the incident was wearing rubber soled tennis shoes; these shoes were synthetic and did not have an attached heel grounding assembly to prevent electrostatic discharge, socks, shorts, 65% polyester-35% cotton, leather gloves, tee shirt. The humidity and wind speed at the time of the incident were approximately 27 and 7 mph, respectively. The temperature at the time of this incident was about 88 degrees F. The top of the tank car was black and probably very hot to the touch. At the Northern Energy tank farm in Lincoln, the railroad tank car continued to burn. Four unmanned hoses were continuously spraying 5,000 gallons per minute of water on the rail car to keep it cool and to keep the pressure down as there was a concern that the tank could build up pressure and cause an explosion or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion, BLEVE. Adding to the danger of the burning railcar was that it was still connected to three other railcar tanks possibly containing as much as 29,000 gallons of LPG each, and there were numerous other larger stationary LPG tanks containing from 170,000 to 500,000 gallons located approximately 200 hundred feet away. So if this tank car were to explode, the fear was that it would ignite all the propane in the other tanks. The possibility of an explosion prompted mandatory evacuations for a one mile area surrounding the company. The evacuations remained in place until early Thursday morning. The tank car fire was put out late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. This relatively new railcar tank was from UTLX. The dimensions of this railcar were approximately: outside length 67 ft

Keywords: BURN, FIRE, RAILROAD CAR, PROPANE, ARM, RAILROAD, LEG