BLAZING GAS-HOLDER

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1930, Page 10

BLAZING GAS-HOLDER

o 1 DASH THROUGH THE FLAMES. Hundreds of people hi England, probably owe their lives to a workman who, at the risk of his life., dashed through smoko and flames to a blazing gas-holder, and saved a town and village from disaster. People rose from I heir beds and rushed cut of doors when a gas-holder exploded and shook the town of Keighley. Widespread panic was caused, but no one was Injured, ; hough smoko and flames rose to a height of GOOC. ami fumes hung over the village of Thwaites, where the Keighley gas works arc situated, for some hours. William Brent. Lie yard foreman, was tho hi.ro of th occasion. Utterly regardless of his own safety, he rushed down tho yard, through an inferno of flames, smoke and fumes, to the control house, and turned the wheel which shut off the gas that was pouring into tho blazing gas aoldcr. If the gas had continued to go into tho wrecked holder, the flames would, in all probability, have spread to another full gas-holder a few feet away. “Tho report of tho explosion shook tho building,” Mr. Brent, whose head and hands v, ere burned, declared. “The top of the holder seemed to .shoot off, ci unipls up and collapse. Flame:: shot into the air, and smoke rose in dense clouds. There was rimmln.jnt danger of the second gasometer becoming involved. I thought at any moment that there would be a further explosion. Had the top of the gasometer not broken and the explosion occurred inwardly instead of rising into tho sky, tho consequences would have been terrible.” Tho cause of the explosion is a mystery.