Abstract: An employer was drilling in a new field and had reached a depth of approximately 17,000 feet. He was tripping the drill string into the wellbore and had approximately 12 stands in the hole when natural gas, drilling mud, and the drill string were blown out of the wellbore. The natural gas caught fire and burned approximately 200 feet into the air. Employee #1, a derrickman, was on the pipe racking board and was blown upward, landing approximately 62 feet away from the base of the vee door chute where it joins the steel catwalk. He was killed. When the blind rams on the blowout preventers were closed, the fire died out.