March 16:

Propane fire at Epic does little damage (from the Verona Press)

Kelsey Dionne
Verona Press correspondent

There was little damage but a whole lot of flame Monday night when a cluster of three large propane tanks ignited at Epic.

Verona Fire Department firefighters were already on the scene when the tanks caught fire, and dozens of others joined them to control the blaze. They poured about 400,000 gallons of water over several hours on the medical software giant's Kohoutek building - which is still under construction - to keep the fire contained, said VFD Capt. Alex Miller.

"Once it ignited, we took the stance that we had it contained, there was no damage being done to the building," Miller said. "(We) let itself mitigate rather than put someone in harm's way to go down there and try to turn the tanks off."

The department was called shortly after 5 p.m. because the linked propane tanks - each about half-filled to their 1,000 gallon capacities - were venting gas through a ruptured hose. Firefighters were in the midst of a shift change when the call came and arrived in 10 to 12 minutes, according to the department's log.

They began spraying the gas leak with water to disperse the fumes, Miller said, but after about 30 or 40 minutes, jets of fire suddenly burst up the side of Kohoutek.

The flames from the propane tanks blazed between 20 and 25 feet high, and firefighters could feel intense heat from where they supervised, about 100 feet away.

"You get that rushing, thundery, under-pressure sound," Miller said. "It sounded like an airplane motor."

Fitchburg and Mount Horeb units also were called to the scene, and the Middleton Fire Department staffed Verona's empty fire station and responded to two other calls in the City of Verona. Miller estimated that between 40 and 50 firefighters fought to keep the flames under control until the propane tanks burned out around 11 p.m.

Nobody was injured, and Kohoutek - or the K building - which is still mostly concrete, escaped with little damage.

The propane tanks were part of a temporary heating unit for construction workers, and Miller said he believed the unit's pilot light ignited the leak. Because of the way they were connected, shutting one off would not stop the fire from spreading to the other tanks.

"If we shut one tank off, the other two were going to go because it was all essentially one big tank," Miller said.