“It was scary” Dunklin County resident recalls fire that caused tank to explode

DUNKLIN COUNTY, Mo. (KBSI) – “It was scary, really scary.” 

Phyllis Morgan recalled when she knew something was wrong last Wednesday afternoon. 

“I was leaving the house about a quarter til 1. I walked out the front door and saw smoke coming down the road, and realized it was a grass fire. It exploded just really fast because of the wind and the dry conditions,” she said. 

Shortly after firefighters arrived on scene, a tank exploded, hurling the end of it some 100 feet where it crashed through the roof of Morgan’s shed. 

“The end of it blew off and it went high up in the air. I don’t see how it did that,” Morgan said.

This incident is part of what has been an unprecedented number of fires in the area.

Kennett Fire Marshal Dennis Hamlett said his department responded to five structure fires in three days. 

“We’re getting two to three months of structure fires in one week,” he said.

And the common denominator among all those structure fires? They all began as grassfires. 

“Every day it gets a little bit drier. The grass is all turning green and pretty but there’s still a bunch of brown in it,” Hamlett said. “The longer it goes, the longer it’s going to stay. We’re going to need more rain. This wind has got to die down.” 

And if you’re questioning whether you should burn or not, Hamlett advised not to, because you may not be as lucky as Morgan was. 

“There’s no guarantee that it’s going to stay where you’re trying to burn at,” Hamlett said.

“I don’t know how everything didn’t burn,” Morgan said. “Just lucky, very lucky.”