OT: Pipeline fire near Cheyenne, WY

[George Stolz]

Around 10AM mountain time this morning (about an hour and a half ago), a pipeline southeast of Cheyenne caught fire.

Here is a picture taken from the interstate, about 10 miles away from the blaze.

It looked about that size under 7x magnification from my house, over fifty miles away. Notice the transmission lines in the foreground of the picture? Can you imagine how tall the flames were off the ground?

I'm normally not a looky-loo, but we drove out to this one - we stayed out of the way, though. I don't even know how fire equipment was getting there, it looked like they were just going baja across several miles of field, from the interstate. The fire is out now, no word on damage or injuries.

This isn't really an electrical issue, I just thought it was pretty wild. I hope nobody was nearby when it went up.

 

[Rockyd]

Terrible industrial accident with a Cat. Early coverage here. Should impress upon everyone the risks involved in having C1D1 being done to the best of a person's ability.

 

[George Stolz]

Thanks for the link.

I was hoping it was an act of vandalism - we had a gas well explode near Windsor, CO, about 12 miles from our house that shook the windows of my house. Since it was intentional, no one was injured in that one.

My thoughts go out to the family of the driver of the bulldozer, this is very sad.

 

[George Stolz]

Looks as though this was clearly a digging accident, here's a link to Channel 9's coverage.

I just heard on the TV that he was digging in a pipe to run parallel with the existing 36" pipe.

He left behind a wife in Cheyenne and a daughter out of state.