50th anniversary of the fire & explosion that killed 5 Kansas City firefighters and brought us the term BLEVE. A look back to August 18, 1959.

Watch 1959 film and KMBC-TV news story about the fire, along with the coverage of the memorial dedication in 1999 (a must see) Details of Tuesday's event from IAFF Local 42
Tomorrow morning at 10:00, firefighters and others will gather at a small memorial adjacent to the Missouri - Kansas state line in Kansas City. They will remember five firefighters and a civilian killed during a fire and explosions on a Tuesday morning exactly 50-years earlier.
The Southwest Boulevard fire has often been cited as the first time the term boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion or BLEVE was used to describe the rupture and rocketing of a flammable liquid container during a fire.
The BLEVE was caught on film by KMBC-TV cameraman Joe Adams.
Killed in the fire and explosions were Captain George Bartels, Captain Pete Sirna, Firefighter Neal Owen, Firefighter Virgil Sams and Firefighter Delbert Stone of the Kansas City, Missouri Fire Department. Also killed was a civilian, Francis Toomes, described as a friend of "men in one of the engine companies".
Read initial AP and UPI accounts of the fire
Aerial and ground views of the same area during a 1951 flood and tank farm fire and here

The fire broke out around 8:20 AM as two men fueled a gasoline tank truck. The fire spread to four horizontal tanks capable of holding 21,000 gallons. They were filled to various levels with kerosene and gasoline.
During the earlier stages of the fire a number of firefighters were felled by the heat from the fire and the hot summer day. Others were taken from the scene by ambulance because of smoke inhalation.
As the fire progressed the first three tanks failed adding considerable fuel to the fire. But an NFPA report said these tanks did not move very far when their welds tore loose. It was at about the two-hour point into the fire that the rupture of tank number four containing 15,655 gallons of gasoline occurred. It "rocketed a distance of 94 ft. and landed 15 ft. into the street".
The tank also went through one brick wall and knocked down another. The resulting fireball is what engulfed the firefighters.
Firefighter Lester Cecil told a reporter, "The tanks were ruptured and were hissing like jets. I saw a sheet of flame coming at me and started to run up Thirty-First (street). I caught on fire and started to roll. There was a sheet of flame over me. It was about five feet off the ground and completely over me."