As she does every morning, Laura Sparling entered her kitchen early Wednesday to turn on the radio and listen to the morning news.
Little did she know that at that moment, she herself would bear witness to a terrifying national media story.
In a loud, violent instant, an explosion blew the Stittco Energy Ltd. mechanical shop near her home into a blanket of mangled wood and twisted metal.
“It was a huge sound and I remember seeing from the corner of my eye flashes of light or whiteness, and then the whole house shook,” said Sparling, who lives on Channing Drive overlooking the Stittco property, less than 100 metres from the mechanical shop. “I had no idea what it was. I looked out the window and I could see the explosion had just happened and…then smoke and dust sort of cleared, and the building was just gone.”
The blast shattered Sparling’s living room window and ripped the deadbolt of her front door out of the frame. When she turned around, she saw all of her kitchen cupboards had flung open, her planters and art lying on the floor.
It was about 7:30 am. The explosion had awoken perhaps hundreds of Flin Flonners for many blocks away. Those who were already awake looked out their windows, some believing a vehicle had just slammed into their home.
Officials said the blast sent one man, a 33-year-old third-party mechanic working for Stittco, to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He remained at hospital as of Wednesday afternoon.
What happened, exactly, was still unclear as of Thursday morning, with the Manitoba Office of the Fire Commissioner tasked with the investigation. Evidence did not suggest foul play.
Mark Kolt, chief administrative officer for the City of Flin Flon, said he received information early on that suggested an undetected gas leak was a factor, but he was not in a position to obtain further confirmation.
Kolt, who is also the city’s emergency coordinator, said he spoke to a witness who informed him that an individual got up from underneath a truck at the scene immediately after the explosion.
Stittco spokeswoman Amanda Condie said Wednesday afternoon the company was working with authorities on the investigation. She could not confirm Kolt’s statement about a possible gas leak.
Asked how many people were at or in the mechanical shop when it exploded, Condie could say only “that the information that we have right now is that there was one person involved.” She could not say what the individual was doing at the time of the explosion.
Condie said there was no specific time frame as to when the investigation might conclude. She was also unclear as to when Stittco might reopen.
“I think that a lot has to be determined through the investigation,” Condie said in a phone interview from her Alberta office.
Both Stittco and Flin Flon RCMP confirmed the mechanic sustained the only reported injuries from the explosion.
Kolt said the outcome could have been much worse.
“Obviously this is a serious situation in terms of whatever injuries were sustained,” he said, “but we’re all thankful that this doesn’t appear that it’s a loss-of-life situation and that this didn’t wind up having more consequences than it did.”
Dennis Bouteiller, who owns the Gas Bar convenience store across the street from Stittco, echoed that sentiment. Large sections of the mechanical shop and its contents dropped onto the store parking lot, with some pieces landing near the entrance door.
“You know what, it’s just lucky nobody got killed,” he said a few hours after the explosion, “because about 10 minutes earlier, before the explosion, I probably had about eight to 10 people in the store.”
Bouteiller was brewing a pot of coffee when the building-shaking “big boom went.” What did he think it was?
“Right off the hop I couldn’t tell because it was total dust straight up to my windows,” he said, speaking from behind the counter of his store. “I actually thought it was like a semi – that’s what it sounded like – just ripping right through here. That’s what it sounded like. And then as [the debris] thinned out I saw all my pumps were intact and then finally you could see all the debris [near the store]. And then I saw the [mechanical shop] and there really wasn’t a fire right at the beginning. It was just maybe a small two-foot fire. So right away I called 911.”
After meeting up with police on scene, Bouteiller locked up the store and made his way to his nearby home. He had tried calling his wife, but she was already outside trying to see whether he was okay.
“I was in shock a bit,” he said.
On scene
Officials hastily barricaded off the area to vehicles and pedestrians. Firefighters on scene made their way through rubble to train their hoses on the flames, which yielded a thick cloud of smoke visible for blocks away.
Given the proximity a of propane truck and tanks, not to mention the Gas Bar, there were obvious fears of a second explosion.
“For sure it’s probably in the back of everyone’s mind, but everybody knows they have a job to do,” said Lieut. Ashton Crone of the Flin Flon Fire Dept., incident commander at the scene.
Crone said safety came first as firefighters knocked down the fire, their first priority being flames that were touching the tank of a propane truck that had been parked inside the shop.
He believed the tank was mostly or entirely empty, though firefighters did not know that when they arrived on scene. Beside the propane truck was a mechanic’s vehicle.
With remnants of the shop strewn across numerous metres, Crone said there was little danger of the fire spreading other than the risk of a secondary explosion. Before morning was over, firefighters had left the scene and the barricades were lifted.
Up on Channing Drive, Laura Sparling left her home and headed to Hapnot Collegiate, where she teaches. Emergency personnel had told nearby residents to stay in their homes rather than watching the fire from their front yards.
Sparling, who hails from southern Ontario, said the scene was reminiscent of a tornado’s aftermath with the shop obliterated and debris stretching all the way across the road. Fortunately, no material landed in her yard.
The explosion had repercussions throughout Flin Flon, as about 400 homes and businesses were temporarily without electricity, according to information Manitoba Hydro provided to Kolt.
Some residents were also left without water. The power outage apparently impacted a lift station, Kolt said, adding that pressure differentials resulting from firefighting can also affect water distribution.
The explosion reignited community dialogue over whether it is safe and appropriate to locate a propane supplier in the middle of a community near multiple neighbourhoods.
Mayor Cal Huntley said the city was waiting to learn “what took place and the sequence of events that led up to the incident before deciding on next steps from a city perspective.”
Huntley praised emergency personnel summoned to the scene.
“I really want to recognize our firefighters, police and first-responders for their professional and timely response to such a dangerous situation,” he said. “I don’t believe anyone could have managed the scene more effectively.”
Condie, the Stittco spokeswoman, said the company’s thoughts were with the injured mechanic.
“Our first priority is always with the people on the ground and the people who are affected in the community,” she added.
