Tank battery fire extinguished by VFD

Members of the Albany Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call of a tank battery fire just after 6:00 a.m. last Saturday, April 13. The location was about two and a half miles south of town off of Highway 283.

“Upon our arrival, we found one 210 barrel tank battery fully involved with the top blow-off and sitting where it landed some 75 feet away,” said fire chief Kyle Tischler. “The second tank battery was at the point of being involved. It had tremendous heat and smoke coming out of the tank.”

The fire department used several buckets of class B firefighting foam to cool and then extinguish the fire, which was believed to be started by lightning from a storm that had just come through the area. 

He added that even after the fire had been put out, firefighters had to continue cooling the tanks to make sure the fire did not re-ignite.

“We got pretty lucky in getting this fire out because we actually ran out of foam just after the flames went out,” he said. “These types of fires are very dangerous because they are somewhat unpredictable. We must work quickly to prevent any flames extension to the adjacent tanks and equipment, yet we have to be precise with our water streams so we do not get any plain water into the burning petroleum.”

Water hitting burning oil will typically cause a massive boil-over, he explained.

“That would cause flaming crude oil to be shot into the air, spreading the fire and burning our firefighters,” said Tischler. “This is another type of fire that requires a full team of competent and well-equipped firefighters. We had eight people on this fire and our guys did a great job!”