Unusual oil rig fire busies firefighters
BRIMSTONE — A Tuesday (Sept. 25) fire kept manpower from two area fire departments busy for several hours here combatting a blaze on an oil well service rig.
The fire began at around 10:20 p.m. Tuesday evening on Flower Mountain, located above Lone Mountain Baptist Church near what is typically referred to as the head of Brimstone.
According to Tracy Jeffers of the South Scott Volunteer Fire Department, the service rig was located approximately two miles up the mountain from the main road.
South Scott initially responded to the fire, and requested mutual aid from Huntsville Fire Department because of concern of a lack of water resources to combat a fire of such nature.
South Scott responded with two engines, a tanker-pumper and nine firefighters, while Huntsville responded with an engine and tanker and 13 firefighters.
“Because of the heat, we were forced to rotate fresh crews into the extinguishment process, because heat exhaustion was a real worry,” Jeffers said.
The rig, owned by Barbourville, Ky-based ZTX Drilling, apparently caught fire during the process of removing steel joints from the well. A large hydraulic line burst, spewing oil onto the engine and igniting both the rig and the well.
“An extremely dangerous situation existed because of a 2,000 gallon fuel tank that was full and in very close proximity to the fire,” Jeffers said. “The rig sustained extensive damage, but not near the damage it could have sustained had the fuel tank exploded and added its fuel to the fire, which could have brought the rig down completely.”
Jeffers said that the well was emitting natural gas, which complicated the efforts of firefighters.
Firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze using 60 gallons of fire-fighting foam, which is used to control fuel fires. In all, the firefighters worked four hours to extinguish the blaze.