Oil Fire...

Zag: 12th Dec 2005 - 22:39 GMT

It's pretty mad... wanted to go closer but the Police had other ideas...

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 12th Dec 2005 - 22:56 GMT

Well done for getting this close! Do you live nearby or did you make a trip out there? Were there a lot of people taking pictures?

Zag: 12th Dec 2005 - 22:58 GMT

Just round the corner... there weren't many taking photos from where I was because the road was supposed to be shut!

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 12th Dec 2005 - 23:04 GMT

Holy shit! Were you home when it exploded? What does 600 million gallons of fuel burning sound like?

Zag: 12th Dec 2005 - 23:15 GMT

Was a long way away when it went off... Couldn't really hear it burning when I was taking those shots but it was amazing to see the flames reflecting in the windows of a house about a mile away across the fields.

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 13th Dec 2005 - 03:16 GMT

Amazing experience. I'm glad you weren't too close.

jamie: 13th Dec 2005 - 09:30 GMT

Great photos Zag, and congratulations on posting the first ever Hemel Hempstead *snigger* article on citynoise. Maybe you can follow up with some photos of 'The Magic Roundabout'.

jeremyoffairport: 13th Dec 2005 - 16:13 GMT

oh my my! i hope this didn't afect to badly the operations of nearby luton airport. i suppose it would depend on which way the wind was blowing. this sort of thing doesn't happen in russia because it's such a great country. i like their vodka most of all. but i digress. working in an airport is a cruel and demanding job. this kind of thing doesn't make it any easier. shame on someone.

Zag: 13th Dec 2005 - 17:04 GMT

A fair bit of it was aviation fuel Jezza... maybe they'll have to cut your wages. Shame.

jeremyoffairport: 13th Dec 2005 - 23:14 GMT

I don't work at luton airport! Give me some credit. No, i do voiceovers nowadays

ian: 14th Dec 2005 - 07:53 GMT

I wonder if I'm the only one wondering whether it's an aromatic roundabout, with fully delocalized pi-bonding orbitals.

ian: 14th Dec 2005 - 07:56 GMT

old skool CN

http://www.citynoise.org/article/436/

ian: 14th Dec 2005 - 07:57 GMT

Look, I've even learned to use the neato site markup

Mitch Waxman: 14th Dec 2005 - 08:19 GMT

Its so beautiful, this terror is. Oddly, I've been trying to calculate the megatonnage of this explosion. What was it? Twenty tanks of fuel with a capacity of how many million litres? Jeeez.

Peter: 14th Dec 2005 - 15:12 GMT

the papers this morning called it "...the worst fire in europe since ww2..."

Paul: 14th Dec 2005 - 15:25 GMT

I used to work near there (about 10 years ago) - looking at the latest photos on the BBC site I'm surprised there isn't more widespread damage.

BBC: 14th Dec 2005 - 16:05 GMT

the dead awaken: 14th Dec 2005 - 16:10 GMT

Those are absolutely brilliant! It's just amazing how gorgeous destruction can be...

terseywersey: 14th Dec 2005 - 18:18 GMT

Wow. There hasn't been much on it on American news here -- or at least that I've seen.

I flew home for Christmas out of Gatwick earlier that morning, right before it happened, which is apparently good because it delayed all later flights after mine? Which makes me wonder how far away you could see it -- anyone know?

kumquat: 14th Dec 2005 - 18:19 GMT

Black smoke appeared over London, and some people in south London got woken up by the blast, which allegedly was audible in the Netherlands...

Didn't notice any of it myself. My friends in Hemel went home last night, so it must be OK for their baby now.

sveva: 14th Dec 2005 - 18:51 GMT

I read an article that said smoke was making its way over France and heading toward Spain. I thought that was pretty amazing and for a minute I thought I was reading about something else.

gramarye: 14th Dec 2005 - 18:52 GMT

I was actually in a plane heading toward Gatwick on the Sunday morning, and saw the fire out the window of the aircraft. You could see the huge smoke plume and the fire raging from a good ways away, and you could tell that it was something massive.

I wish I'd thought to take a photograph, but alas I did not.

writerwench: 14th Dec 2005 - 20:07 GMT

That's a very striking photo. As at 6pm Tuesday, all the tank fires had been put out apart from one in a small tank that is being allowed to just burn itself out.

I'm now hearing a lot of rumours that a light aircraft was heard in the vicinity just before the explosion, and because it happened on the 11th of the month, as did Madrid and New York, the rumours of terrorism are rife... however, I'm more inclined to believe that one hapless tanker driver started it by flicking a fuel cut-off switch when he smelled leaking fuel. Poor sod!

Down here in South-West London, 40 miles away, we can smell oil and smoke on the air, but there's no black lid of smoke. We've had a lot of wind and drizzle in the past two days and that's dispersed the cloud very widely and thinly.

I don't think it's any worse air quality now than it was in the 1960's. It certainly smells the same.

anon (popl-cache-1.server.ntli.net): 28th Dec 2005 - 16:18 GMT

How did the explosion happen?

finola jordan: 4th Jan 2006 - 17:02 GMT

i did not experience the blaze but sory 4 those who did:( xxxxx