Hub Oil explosion

The Hub Oil explosion was an industrial accident that took place on August 9, 1999 in Calgary, Alberta. The refinery was located at 5805 17th Ave. S.E., near the eastern edge of Calgary and immediately south of the residential community of Pembrooke.

For more than nine hours after the initial explosion, the fire raged out of control, fuelled by oil, jet fuel and propane. Two more major explosions followed shortly after the first. All three could be heard clearly from the opposite side of Calgary. Many residents of communities near the site dismissed the first blast and resulting plume of smoke as a fire training exercise, as the Calgary Fire Department maintains a training facility about 600 yards south of the site. About 300 nearby residents were evacuated for 20 hours, returning to homes covered in globs of oil, fine dust and shrapnel from exploded refinery vessels. The Calgary Fire Department lost two truck units in the second explosion, and several firefighters sustained minor injuries. A Calgary Police Service car was also destroyed in the third major blast. In total, three major explosions and more than a dozen minor explosions occurred, which hampered efforts to control the fire. Because there were no major structures threatened, and no signifigant fuel source to spread the fire a decision was made by the Calgary Fire Department to withdraw to a safe distance and allow the fire to burn itself out considerably before another attempt would be made to put the flames out. Also destroyed in the ensuing fire was the Corral Drive In, a four screen drive in theatre that was unused at the time of the accident. The remaining parts of the Drive In were removed in 2001.

The two fatalities of the accident were refinery workers Ryan Silver, 24, and Ryan Eckhard, 26. Both men were killed when the small brick building they were in was completely destroyed by the initial explosion.

An investigation determined that a pressure buildup in a second-hand storage tank caused a massive fireball. Court was told during the trial that the tank that exploded had been sold as scrap 28 years earlier.

The vessel, which was more than two metres in diameter and nine metres in length, was fabricated in 1963 and decommissioned in 1971. Hub Oil purchased it in 1985, but the tank sat unused for another six years until Hub switched its fuel recycling operation from a one-step to a two-step recovery system.

The company later pleaded guilty to three counts of common nuisance endangering the public and paid a $400,000 fine. The Hub Oil site, as well as the lot that housed the Corral Drive In are still vacant as of March 23, 2008.