Forty-five years ago, July 31, 1981, Castle Valley residents were watching an outdoor movie at Gene and Norma Montigue’s home on Shafer Lane. The Castle Valley Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsored a monthly movie for the community and it was usually viewed outside somewhere since there were no public buildings in the valley.
We were watching the Disney movie “Sign of Zorro” starring Guy Williams in which Don Diego returned home to find his town under a cruel dictator, and he must don the mask of Zorro to free the pueblo from oppression.
The weather began to turn ugly with rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning far off in the distance but far enough away to not be a concern. As the movie neared the end and the corrupt commandant was meeting his justice, we noticed a glow up on Porcupine Rim somewhere between here and Moab, probably a lightning-caused brush fire we surmised, but definitely out of our ability to reach the fire either by engine or afoot.
A call to the Sheriff’s dispatch office was met with a short, snippy response so we basically let it go since it was out of our control. And, as you might imagine, our power eventually went out when a lightning strike destroyed a power pole near Blue Hill carrying a 138,000-volt transmission line that supplied power to La Sal and Castle Valley and knocked out the power to the radio repeaters on Bald Mesa on the mountain.
But I began hearing alarming traffic on the fire radio and soon realized that all hell broke loose in Moab. That glow we were seeing on Porcupine Rim actually came from a devastating explosion in Moab. Investigators believed that a bolt of lightning struck a valve to gas lines at the Doxol propane plant just north of Moab, which ruptured gas lines near the 17,000-gallon propane storage tank. The wind current carried the escaping gas like a low-lying fog to the Slickrock RV Park full of tourists next door. As soon as the propane fog made contact with a campfire at the RV park, the result was a major explosion that ripped through the campground and knocked power out all over Moab.
It was feared that the intense heat from the fire would cause the storage tank to BLEVE (Boiling Liquid, Expanding Vapor Explosion) and level everything within at least a mile and a half in all directions. As a result, the north end of Moab was evacuated to Southeast Elementary School on Millcreek Drive. Some estimates said that 2,000 to 3,000 people were evacuated. Allen Memorial Hospital on 400 North was not evacuated but beds were moved away from windows and doors and windows were shuttered in the event of a BLEVE. University of Utah Medical and St Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction sent teams to assist with hospital operations and the injured.
Tragically, four people from the campground died and six others were critically injured from the explosion. Three died Tuesday, Aug 4, at the Intermountain Burn Center in Salt Lake City including two sons of Ralph Davies of Montrose, Colorado and a third son was in critical condition at Denver’s Children Hospital. He was in critical condition at Salt Lake City. A couple from Markham, Texas also died that night.
Doug Farnsworth, the operator at the plant, was the only Moab person injured in the fire. He was severely burned when he attempted to close a valve cutting off the gas flow to the flames. He drove his own burning truck to Allen Memorial Hospital after plunging into the brine pool at the plant to cool his burns. He was transported to St. Mary’s Hospital in critical condition. He was credited with preventing a much larger fire when he partially closed the valve.
Bill Davis, The Times-Independent News editor, was on the scene immediately after the explosion and remained there all night and into the morning recording the tragic events with photos and words. The results of his work appeared in the Aug. 6, 1981, edition of this newspaper. At one point, Davis and Fire Chief Troy Black risked their very lives when they drove into the plant area and near the super-heated propane storage tank to get a better look and get some graphic photographic images of the tragic scene.
But when the tank vented, as they are designed to do, and made a noise similar to that of a jet taking off, they made a hasty retreat out of there. Fire agencies from all over the region, including Castle Valley, responded to be of help.
Editor Sam Taylor, in his Community Comment column, expressed his thankfulness to the fire department, law enforcement, medical staff, and citizens who made sandwiches for the emergency crews. He said, “Moab residents have rarely failed to respond to an emergency in a most commendable manner.”