View allAll Photos Tagged buncefield
It was four years ago -- (now six years) -- that I was woken by what I thought must be an earthquake that shook my house. (recorded as 2.5 on the Richter scale.)
I put the radio on and heard that there had been an explosion at the oil depot at Buncefield, less than 10 miles away. I tumbled into the car, and found several places where I could see the huge plume of fire and smoke, spewing up into the dawn sky. During the next hour I took a bunch of snaps -- see
www.flickr.com/photos/algo/sets/1813924/ and below.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Hertfordshire_Oil_Storage_Term...
Quite a few people had gathered to watch, awe struck by the destruction before them. This is still a good 4 miles away from the depot - so you have some sense of how huge the flames are!
All were woken from their sleep at six in the morning - like I was. I live a good 12-15 miles away and the whole house shook, followed by a low deep rumble that lasted many seconds.
The two guys on the right have their heads down - checking the images they'd taken on their phones!
This is best seen larger
Story on BBC news
Check out more of my pictures of this terrible explosion here
(Blatent self publicity: sets - I like - u like - archive - scout)
Sunday December 12th 2005.
Smoke from the burning oil depot fire at Buncefield, Hemel Hempstead hangs over the Abbey/Cathedral giving it a weird colour...
(Wikipedia)
The Buncefield fire was a major conflagration caused by a series of explosions on 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, an oil storage facility located near the M1 motorway by Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England. The terminal was the fifth largest oil-products storage depot in the United Kingdom, with a capacity of about 60,000,000 gallons of fuel. The terminal is owned by TOTAL UK Limited (60%) and Texaco (40%).
The first and largest explosion occurred at 06:01 UTC near tank 912, which led to further explosions which eventually overwhelmed 20 large storage tanks. The emergency services announced a major emergency at 06:08 and a fire fighting effort began. The cause of the explosion seems to have been a fuel-air explosion of unusually high strength. Latest evidence suggests this may have been caused by hedgerows of deciduous trees accelerating the flame front to such a degree its pressure wave caused remaining air fuel to detonate. The British Geological Survey monitored the event, which measured 2.4 on the Richter scale. News reports described the incident as the biggest of its kind in peacetime Europe and certainly the biggest such explosion in the United Kingdom since the 1974 Flixborough disaster. The flames had been extinguished by the afternoon of 13 December 2005. However, one storage tank re-ignited that evening, which the fire-fighters left to burn rather than attempting to extinguish it again.
The Health Protection Agency and the Major Incident Investigation Board provided advice to prevent incidents such as these in the future. The primary need is for safety measures to be in place to prevent fuel escaping the tanks in which it is stored. Added safety measures are needed for when fuel does escape, mainly to prevent it forming a flammable vapour and stop pollutants from poisoning the environment.
Taken from 8 to 10 crow miles away, about two hours after the explosion.
More pictures of this cloud -- www.flickr.com/photos/23548413@N00/72457773
Further pictures of the disaster here: flickr.com/photos/algo/sets/1813924/
© All rights reserved (by me the photographer - Dr. David J. Otway)
I emailed this picture into the Daily Telegraph on the afternoon of the Buncefield Oil Depot explosion and they published it on page 4 of the paper on 12-12-05 :-)
I've replaced the photo with a slightly enhanced one since I've honed up on my PS skills - only the contrast has been tweaked to remove some of the haziness!
Taken by me from Ryanair flight FR903 STN-CORK at 11.40 am 11-12-05 10 mins after take-off.
The pilot banked to fly around smoke and I got a series of pics that I'll post having just gotten into the office now.
I saw this ominous cloud over London and thought that's strange on a foggy day.
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
Link to bbc news story news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4517962.stm.
This photo has (14-07-06) gained 2nd place in the Citizen Journalism Awards 2006 sponsored by Nokia NSeries :-)
Made the most interesting list for 11-12-05.
Have a look here for an interview with me on Swiss TV about these shots and on UGC - User Generated Content in general.
© All rights reserved (by me the photographer - Dr. David J. Otway)
See my set of pics for more of my aerial shots of the Buncefield (UK) Fuel Depot Fire and the BBC story about User Generated Content with a fair bit about what I saw that day.
Taken by me from seat 6A from Ryanair FR903 STN-CORK on the morning of 11th December 2005. Was pure luck that I'd ended up on the left hand side of the plane in a window seat (as I normally would sit in row 1 if possible - but it was busy) with my camera on my lap and not in the box above, let alone having the camera on this flight at all :-)
Its a little fuzzy as its taken at full digital zoom in a moving airplane (so not bad considering) :-)
We were getting closer and it was by now obvious that the fire was huge (this was taken at 11.41 am and the explosion had happened at 6.13 that morning) !
Going through my archives and also I've since toned up on my PS skills a little enough to play with some of the pics I didn't think were good enough to share at the time.
So I thought I'd air them and see what people thought.
Earlier text - Taken the morning of the Buncefield Fuel/Oil Depot fire/explosion - the pilot banked to fly around the smoke and I got a series of pics (some of which are earlier in my photos)
I saw this ominous cloud over London and thought that's strange on a foggy day.
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
Taken by me from Ryanair flight FR903 STN-CORK at 11.40 am 11-12-05 10 mins after take-off.
Not the sharpest one - as taken at full limit of digital zoom from climbing aircraft.
I saw this ominous cloud over London and thought that's strange on a foggy day.
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
The BBC have run an article on the use of flickr and other photo sites with mention of my pictures of the Oil Depot Fire :-) news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4522014.stm
Link to bbc news story of the explosion news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4517962.stm
Extraordinary view from the London Eye during the Buncefield oil depot fire, near Luton Airport and Hemel Hempstead. Like Mordor and Sauron spreading their gloom across Middle Earth.
(This is my only copy, originally from img.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0512/12/london375.jpg - I don't have any other source, unfortunately. If anyone can find the original and its creator, I'd be glad to know.)
© All rights reserved (by me the photographer - Dr. David J. Otway)
Taken by me from Ryanair flight FR903 STN-CORK at 11.40 am 11-12-05 10 mins after take-off and posted to flickr at about 1.30 pm that afternoon
Best viewed full size.
The pilot banked to fly around smoke and I got a series of pics that I'll post having just gotten into the office now.
I saw this ominous cloud over London and thought that's strange on a foggy day.
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
This is up on the BBC website now as the icon for their pictures of the story - its also bigger size as the 2nd picture in the set up there - news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4518026.stm
This picture has also been used by CNN here www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/12/14/britain.oil.blasts/in... (3rd image in gallery).
Link to bbc news story news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4517962.stm
This photo was also used by the BBC in a story entitled "TV news looks to the future".
The 101 Forward Control or Land Rover 101FC was a vehicle produced by Land Rover for the British Army. It was never made available to the public.
14th Annual, St. George's British Motoring Show, Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada.
For my video; youtu.be/y46aAlCNtUk
The vehicle was primarily produced to meet the Army's requirement for a gun tractor, and was designed to tow a field gun (the L118 Light Gun) with a ton of ammunition and other equipment in the rear load space, giving it the alternative name of the Land Rover One Tonne. The vehicle was designed to be easily transported by air; the positioning of the 3.5 litre Rover V8 engine beneath and to the rear of the cab eliminates the bonnet at the front, making the vehicle more or less cuboid thus reducing unused space in transport aircraft. Of concern was the payload and limited stability, particularly when crossing an incline.
The official name of 101 Forward Control is derived from the vehicle's 101-inch (2,565 mm) wheelbase, and the position of the driver, above and slightly in front of the front wheels which used a fairly large 9.00 × 16 inch tyre. To cope with the extra height above the ground, the wheels feature an unusual feature for a Land Rover (but used for many years on the much older and similar Mercedes Unimog S404); a flange around the centre of the wheel has an embossed tread pattern forming a step for the crew when entering the cab, named a wheel-step.
Development of the 101FC started in 1967, with a design team led by Norman Busby (14 October 1931 – 30 June 2005). Production took place between 1972 and 1978. In common practice of the armed forces, many vehicles were not used for some years and it is not unheard of for military vehicle enthusiasts to pick up these vehicles after only a few thousand miles service. All the vehicles produced at the Land Rover factory at Lode Lane, Solihull were soft top ("rag top") General Service (GS) gun tractors, although later on many were rebuilt with hard-top ambulance bodies and as radio communication trucks. A rare variant is the electronic warfare Vampire body. It is thought that only 21 of these were produced and less than half of these survive today. One was destroyed in the Buncefield Oil Terminal Fire.
The 101FC also served with the RAF Regiment. Two 101s were allocated to each Rapier Missile set up. The British RAF Rapier system used three Land-Rovers in deployment: a 24V winch fitted 101 Firing Unit Tractor (FUT) to tow the launch trailer, loaded with four Rapier missiles, guidance equipment and radio; a 12V winch fitted 101 Tracking Radar Tractor (TRT) to tow the Blindfire Radar trailer, also loaded with four Rapier missiles and guidance equipment; and a 109 Land Rover to tow a reload trailer with 9 Rapier missiles and loaded with the unit's other supplies and kit.
© All rights reserved (by me the photographer - Dr. David J. Otway)
Best viewed large.
Taken from Ryanair FR903 STN-CORK on the morning of 11th December 2005.
I've since toned up on my PS skills a little enough to play with some of the pics I didn't think were good enough to share at the time. The contrast and colours had to be tweaked on this one as there was a lot of murk from the windows of the plane and the angle it was taken from didn't help.
So I thought I'd air them and see what people thought.
See the set of pics for full details on the explosion and the BBC story about User Generated Content.
© All rights reserved (by me the photographer - Dr. David J. Otway)
Coming in closer to route around the blaze and the smoke cloud.
See my set of pics for more of my aerial shots of the Buncefield (UK) Fuel Depot Fire and the BBC story about User Generated Content with a fair bit about what I saw that day.
Taken by me from seat 6A from Ryanair FR903 STN-CORK on the morning of 11th December 2005. Was pure luck that I'd ended up on the left hand side of the plane in a window seat (as I normally would sit in row 1 if possible - but it was busy) with my camera on my lap and not in the box above, let alone having the camera on this flight at all :-)
We were getting closer and it was by now obvious that the fire was huge (this was taken at 11.41 am and the explosion had happened at 6.13 that morning) !
Going through my archives and also I've since toned up on my PS skills a little enough to play with some of the pics I didn't think were good enough to share at the time.
So I thought I'd air them and see what people thought.
Earlier text - Taken the morning of the Buncefield Fuel/Oil Depot fire/explosion - the pilot banked to fly around the smoke and I got a series of pics (some of which are earlier in my photos)
I saw this ominous cloud over London and thought that's strange on a foggy day.
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
The roads were closed but various people with all manner of digital cameras were walking up the country road to see what could be seen.
Walking the dog!!
Isn't it amazing how quickly we get used to things??
This same spot yesterday had stunned people gazing in awe. Today - well a nice afternoon to walk the dog!!! And this guy was genuinely oblivious to the background!!! It wasn't even cause for conversation...the mud in the field, the pretty sun - but not the vast plume of pollution behind and the occassional leaping flames!!!
:-)
Taken by me from Ryanair flight FR903 STN-CORK at 11.40 am 11-12-05 10 mins after take-off.
Replaced with a slightly contrast enhanced version now I've honed my skills in PS :-)
The pilot banked to fly around smoke and I got a series of pics that I'll post having just gotten into the office now.
I saw this ominous cloud over London and thought that's strange on a foggy day.
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
Link to bbc news story news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4517962.stm
Taken on the day of the Hemel Hempstead Buncefield Oil Depot 'Big Fire' (we were about 10 miles away)
Although not my photo's, i found these deep within my hard drive vaults so i think they must have been sent to me via email and are too good not to share. These are great shots of the disastrous oil depot fire at Buncefield near Hemel Hempstead UK on 11th December 2005. I've studied these photographs carefully and the damage is pretty severe. Although this is about 40 miles from where i live we couldn't see any smoke that day although large areas of the south east including central London most certainly could and apparently the explosion was heard as far away as Holland.
For more infomation CLICK!
The Buncefield Oil fire cloud moving behind our office.
-Added to the Cream of the Crop pool as ..
Most Favourited
Found this on news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4517962.stm
Not much news coverage here in the U.S. regarding this story. I wonder how Hemel Hempstead is doing.
I and Riley had watched the sunset from one of my favorite places (overlooking the sheep). I decided the show was over, and we returned home through the woods. Some 20 minutes later, almost to the south I caught sight of this, and it's great to share it (Riley doesn't seem to appreciate sunsets). I love those winter trees.
AND A GREAT DARKNESS CAME OVER THE ..............
Probably my last pic of that morning. Within a couple of hours of the explosion, and just after sunrise.
The dark cloud from the explosion caused this earie dark hue across Enfield.
-Added to the Cream of the Crop pool as ..
Most Interesting
Boeing 747-4B5
Msn 24198
L/N 729
First flight May 13th 1989
Delivered new to Korean Air on June 13th 1989 as HL7477 and then HL7407. Moved to Air India in November 2003 as VT-AIC but moved back to Korean Air in November 2006 as HL7607.
The cloud in the background is from the Buncefield Oil Storage Terminal about twenty miles away.
Can you name those responsible?
Images of the forms taken by the terrible cloud of the burning oil.
These are straight photographs of the cloud.
To get a wider picture go here: flickr.com/photos/algo/72332476/in/set-1813924/
Canary Wharf obscured by the smoke clouds drifting over London from the oil refinery explosion at Hemel Hempstead.
Update: This is a similar shot on a clearer day about a year later!
© All rights reserved (by me the photographer - Dr. David J. Otway)
Full digital zoom from a climbing aircraft.
Original shot is here.
Taken on the morning of the 11th December 2005 from a Ryanair flight (FR903) from STN-CORK.
Not the sharpest one, but better since re-running through PS.
I had seen this ominous cloud over London and thought "that's strange on a foggy day".
I hadn't heard the news as I'd been travelling all morning but someone on the plane had a relative 4 miles away that had their windows popped.
The BBC ran an article on the use of flickr and other photo sites with mention of my pictures of the Oil Depot Fire :-) news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4522014.stm
Link to bbc news story of the explosion news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4517962.stm
Can anyone read this message? Top secret?
Is this what happens when a contrail is laid in an oily cloud?
Or is it common and I've just not noticed it before?
Millennium Bridge, Bankside - that's smoke from the Buncefield explosion in the sky, not clouds. The skies have been very strange ever since, but it was most spectacular on Sunday. You could smell the smoke in the air over a lot of London.
Submitted to Cream of the Crop - my most favorited picture.
The black cloud from the Buncefield fire and the December mist has made a very strange effect on the fields around Enfield
Butler created a standard logo format for the heating oil distributors it acquired, and other businesses it started such as the Dieseline bunkering service for commercial vehicle operators.
Here we see Arndale, Butler, Dieseline, Elston, Gough, John (sometimes rendered as John's), and Shire. One that's missing is Yea Fuels, who (from memory of a Yellow Pages advert) had a similar logo but with a winged 'YF' rather than just a 'Y'. Were there any others?
As far as I know, only the Arndale and Butler brands appeared on petrol stations—although the Dieseline logo presumably appeared at some truckstops or bunkering sites? Also, Elston appeared on at least one paraffin pump, at Withypool on Exmoor: www.flickr.com/photos/danlockton/15634798844/
RMC1456 (456CLT) climbs towards the bridge over the Grand Union Canal in Two Waters Road with a 302 to Watford Heath on 30 April 1975, with the route number chalked in twice for emphasis. Over the trees can be seen the Kodak HQ building, which was vacated in 2005, temporarily reoccupied after the Buncefield fire of the same year, and since converted to flats.
Some very spooky images came from this oil fire, which blanketed a large chunk around London with thick fumes.
(Originally from AFP)
We were woken this morning at six – the house shuddering and the air outside filled with a deep ominous rumble that lasted for almost a minute.
An oil depot some 15 miles from us had exploded.
This was taken from Hemel Hempstead - the police had just blocked off access to the motorway and many drivers had got out of their vehicles to see what was happening. The Flames and fireballs were rising many hundreds of feet in the air.
Story on BBC news
More of my pictures are here