This footage shows a massive fire inside a chemical production plant.
This facility is host to a large quantity of a particularly noteworthy material.
What you are about to see, is what happens when an uncontrolled fire finds its way into
containers of rocket fuel chemicals.
This is merely one of several explosions.
Ammonium perchlorate is an oxidizer used in solid propellant rocket boosters.
It is unstable and highly flammable.
In 1988 there were just two producers of ammonium perchlorate in the United States - Pacific
Engineering and Production Company of Nevada, or PEPCON, with a plant in Henderson Navada,
and Kerr-McGee, located just 1 and a half miles away.
At this time, ammonium perchlorate was being used for rockets in submarine launched ballistic
missiles and NASA's Space Shuttle.
This is important because in 1988 the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded, stemming from
the 1986 Challenger disaster.
This lead to PEPCON storing a large amount of excess ammonium perchlorate on behalf of
the US Government at their plant.
The Government had contracted the production of the material and owned it, but with the
Space Shuttle fleet grounded, they arranged for PEPCON to hold onto it for them.
As such, there was an estimated 4,500 tons of the product stored at the facility.
On May 4th, 1988, a fire broke out in the PEPCON plant.
What exactly caused this fire is debated.
The United States Fire Administration stated it likely began during repair work to a fiberglass
structure in the plant.
Workers were welding a steel frame when the fiberglass caught fire and the flames quickly
spead.
The US Department of Labor and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health discounted
this theory as unlikely, saying the exact cause was unknown.
Regardless of what caused it, workers in the plant were now faced with a fire.
They attempted to put out the fire, but it quickly spread across fiberglass panelling.
Very rapidly, the workers were in the midst of a fire that was beyond their control.
The plant had to be evacuated.
At the time, PEPCON employed about 130 people, but only about 80 were present for this incident.
As workers are running from the plant to their cars and driving away from the area.
PEPCON's controller, Roy Westerfield is faced with a conundrum.
He is a wheelchair user in an emergent disaster.
Putting the safety of others above that of his own, he elects to stay behind while everyone
else runs out.
He calls the Clark County Fire Department.
Suddenly, there is an explosion.
It is only a small detonation, but it will not be the last.
Plant manager Bruce Halker is ushering workers out of the building and to their cars.
With so much ammonium perchlorate being stored in the facility, it is not enough to simply
leave the building, everyone needs to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.
A broadcast engineer servicing a transmitter on a mountain about 2 miles away starts to
film, and captures some of the subsequent explosions, the sound taking about 10 seconds
to reach him.
In total there were seven explosions in the plant, as the fire ignited explosive chemicals
and ruptured the underground gas line.
The largest of these explosions registered a 3.5 on the Richter scale, and was equivalent
to a quarter kiloton of TNT, about the same yield as a tactical nuclear weapon.
It is one of the largest domestic non-nuclear explosions in recorded history.
At the plant, Bruce Halker is killed in the blasts.
He was near his car at the time, perhaps about to leave.
Roy Westerfield is vaporized, there is nothing left of him for responders to find.
The explosions are still occurring as firefighters are making their way to the PEPCON plant.
The shockwaves blow out their windows, showering them in broken glass.
Escaping workers fleeing in the opposite direction warn them there could be follow-up explosions.
The injured firefighters make no attempts to approach the fire - there is nothing they
can do.
A five-mile radius around the plant is evacuated.
The explosions completely level the PEPCON plant and a neighbouring facility.
Damages are recorded up to three miles away.
The nearest residential buildings are 1.75 miles away.
Cars are flipped and destroyed, buildings are damaged, windows are shattered.
Many are cut with broken glass, especially as so many near the plant were in vehicles.
People in their homes were peering out their windows after hearing the first explosions,
unaware they were about to be sliced up by subsequent blasts.
Even a passing 737 is rattled by the shockwaves.
Henderson resident Pat Rose is 2,000 feet from the plant when a 4 pound rock smashes
through his car window and lodges in his skull.
He is left permanently disabled.
He is one of over 370 people injured by the PEPCON explosions, but amazingly, there are
only two deaths - Bruce Halker and Roy Westerfield.
After the fires die down, there is an ugly legal aftermath.
PEPCON had one million dollar insurance, which lead to problems when damages exceeded 100
million dollars and left insurers badly out of pocket.
They tried to shift the blame onto their gas supplier, stating the fire was caused by a
leaking gas line.
This evolved into a legal war amonst dozens of corporations and insurance companies.
Tens of millions of dollars were spent on over 50 law firms involved in the case.
In 1992, it settled out of court with payments of 70 million dollars.
Insurance companies received a further 3.8 million dollars from the county after evidence
came to light of some questionably lax regulation and inspections.
Some testified that it was only a matter of time before a disaster occured considering
the state of the plant was often found in, with PEPCON seemingly unconcerned that dangerous
materials could be found lying on the ground.
Instead of rebuilding at the Henderson site, PEPCON relocated to Utah, further disrupting
the lives of their workers, and was renamed Western Electrochemical Co. or WECCO.
In 1997 there was an explosion at the WECCO plant that killed one and injured four.
And so ends the tale of the PEPCON disaster.
The footage of the event is awe-inspiring, a truly terrifying display of destructive
power, and we only have it through coincidence.
A broadcast engineer just happened to be at the perfect vantage spot at the time.
Without this coincidence, this footage, it would probably be very hard to comprehend
the scale of this event.
Actually, it still is.
As we vicariously watch from the mountainside, explosions 2 miles away filling the screen,
we can only imagine what it was like for those on site, those who spent their last moments
in a fleeting world of fire.