Exploding cornfields are more often thought to be an event in a sci-fi movie than a real-life experience. But, residents in Eerie, Illinois who were as far as 20 miles from the epicenter of the blast saw just that: a cornfield going up in flames, with some flames reaching as high as 300 feet in the air. Pilots in the air while the fire was ablaze reported seeing flames from as far away as 160 miles.
The cause of the cornfield blast was a natural gas pipeline leak according to investigators. Operators of the broken gas line closed a valve upstream from the blaze, cutting off the fuel supply and allowing the fire to burn it’s self out. As many as 80 nearby homes were evacuated because of the potential dangers associated with the gas explosion.
Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners owns the Illinois pipeline that was the cause of the recent nighttime blast. An EPP pipeline suffered a similar leak in 2011, polluting the Missouri River with 140,000 gallons of natural gas. EPP owns and operates 50,000 miles of oil, gas and petrochemical pipelines across the United States.
A spokesman from Enterprise insists that no harmful chemicals were leaked from the pipeline that were not burned off in the resulting blaze. No injuries were reported as resulting from the natural gas pipeline explosion.
Source: Climate Progress, “Natural Gas Pipeline Causes Cornfield To Explode In Western Illinois,” August 13, 2013