1 Injured After Boiler Explodes Inside Phila. Elementary School

Did that rock I threw at you hit the target?

How does something like this happen?

Probably trying to lit it by hand. Said someone was working on it when it blew. Sounds like gas explosion and not the boiler it's self.

A friend of mine was killed while working on a high pressure rental boiler they had on a site while doing main steam plant repairs, very skilled and one of the best in the business. The boiler had been certified for use after internals but the old rental 100hp or so boiler internally collapsed on steam chest from a weakened drum I think, parts of boiler found 1/4 mile away. Not always a case of not following rules. This was a sad day in our boiler community. If I remember right it was 1990.

Man Dies In Mobile-Boiler Explosion -- Cars Damaged In Blast At Pier 91
One man was killed yesterday when a mobile boiler exploded at an oil storage and shipping terminal at Pier 91.

The force of the blast hurled the pickup-sized boiler hundreds of yards, according to a Seattle Fire Department estimate.

The boiler struck and destroyed several new cars parked in a Port of Seattle storage area and punched through a chain-link fence before it rolled to a stop alongside Burlington Northern railroad tracks.

The concussion damaged several other cars and some equipment in an adjoining waste-oil reprocessing plant.

Normally about five or six employees would have been working near the boiler, but most were off on a long Thanksgiving holiday.

The victim was working on a mobile boiler installed for temporary use by Pacific Northern Oil Co., a firm that supplies freighters with bunker fuel.

The medical examiner's office said it would need to examine dental records and probably wouldn't identify the victim before Monday.

Steve Politeo, operations manager for Pacific Northern Oil Co., said the boiler had been installed by Bosler Energy Systems Inc., so the plant's regular boiler could be shut down for maintenance.

The mobile boiler, which was outdoors, was to have begun operation yesterday, he said.

Normally bunker fuel is heavy and thick. Steam is used to heat the oil in storage tanks so it can be pumped aboard ships.

There were no eyewitnesses, but the blast shook the Pier 91 area north of the Magnolia Bridge.

``My knees were buckling. It sounded like a jet flying over at Mach 1,'' said Harlan Odegard, an employee of City Ice, a cold-storage plant across a driveway from Pacific Northern Oil.

The explosion, at about 2:30 p.m., rattled the warehouse where he was working and knocked fluorescent tubes from the overhead lights, Odegard said.