Firefighters at Glenpool Fire Glad the Worst is Over

Firefighters spent the Tuesday morning on standby and the afternoon packing up all their equipment.<br/><br/>It was just a big a job to dismantle all they put together Monday to put a massive gasoline

Tuesday, June 13th 2006, 4:19 pm

By: News On 6

Firefighters spent the Tuesday morning on standby and the afternoon packing up all their equipment.

It was just a big a job to dismantle all they put together Monday to put a massive gasoline tank fire.

News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says it's not the most glamorous part of the job - rolling up the hoses - but these supply lines were key to success at the tank farm.

The foam that put out the fire is 99% water and it takes a lot of it to mount a successful attack.

Glenpool Fire Chief Paul Newton was in charge of the fire service at the scene, and he had lots of help.

"Basically the sight of a fire like that is extraordinary and people need to realize that no one agency has the equipment to completely deal with a situation like that, without the network of mutual aid, we wouldn't have brought it under control in the time that we did," Newton says.

Part of the reason the fire burned all day was the time it took to get the equipment ready to fight it.

Firefighters laid almost a mile of 5" water line so they could make the amount of foam they needed.

The Tulsa Fire Department's Captain Randy Springs says, "The foam is going to absorb the BTU's and absorb the heat and eventually cover the fire and smother it."

The foam equipment came from Sunoco and Williams firefighting. Tulsa's fire department along with Bixby, Keifer and Jenks helped out.

"There is a lot of the equipment in the Tulsa area," says Chief Newton. "However the worst thing you can do is start to fight a fire like that and then run out of the resources you need."

The decision on whether to let it burn or use foam and when to do what was up to Explorer Pipeline, which called in the experts from Texas to help make that decision.

As it turned out, they saved most of the gas from the tank, and most importantly, no one was hurt.