Natural Gas Lines Explode, Sending Up Fireball No One Injured In Second Northwest Pipeline Break And Explosion In State In Two Nights

Two natural gas pipelines exploded in a rural area near Kalama on Sunday night, sending up a fireball that lit up the night sky across much of southwest Washington.

The fire was put out within two hours.

It was the second break in two days in a Northwest Pipeline Corp. line in Washington state. On Saturday night, a fireball lit the sky at the northern end of the state near the border with Canada.

No one was injured in either blast.

Sunday night’s explosion created an eerie orange glow visible across the western horizon in the heavily populated areas of Vancouver, Wash., and across the Columbia River in Portland, Ore., 35 miles south of Kalama.

Close to the explosion, the blast turned night to day.

“That whole area was lit up like daylight,” said Mike Nordvick, who lives one-eighth of a mile from the blast on Kalama River Road between Kelso and Kalama.

A few residents were evacuated from a trailer park known as Mahaffey’s Campground shortly after the 6:30 p.m. blast but were allowed to return within two hours.

“My daughter’s house is right next to it. It knocked her on her butt. She just grabbed her purse and ran out the door,” said a woman in the area who did not want her name used.

A big plume of smoke rose from the area about an hour after the 6:30 p.m. explosion.

An exit from Interstate 5 at Kalama River Road was closed Sunday night. The freeway remained open, but hundreds of motorists pulled to the edge of the highway to watch the spectacle.

Cowlitz County Sheriff Brian Pedersen said the explosion occurred in two pipelines that travel along a ridge above the Kalama River.

“The first question that came to our mind was sabotage,” Pedersen said. “You just don’t expect the same pipeline to blow up in two places two days apart.”

However, there was no evidence that the blast human-caused, he said. The Saturday night explosion and another near Castle Rock in December likely were caused by mudslides, Pedersen said, and it’s possible that the ground beneath the pipes had given way Sunday, causing the latest blast.

“The leading theory now is we have another ground failure,” he said.

Northwest Pipeline representatives did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

The Sunday blast occurred on Kalama River Road in a rural area south of Kelso and north of Kalama, about five miles east of Interstate 5, said dispatcher Tracy Eaton-Collins of the Cowlitz County sheriff’s department. The area was cordoned off and would be closely examined after daybreak, authorities said.

The blast triggered a fire in nearby trees. The firefighters’ lone access to the site was on a primitive logging road.

The previous night, a Northwest Pipeline Corp. gas line ruptured and exploded in a remote area near Everson, Wash., in northwest Washington about five miles south of the border with Canada.

Investigators Sunday were inspecting that break and a neighboring pipeline to check for the cause of the Everson blast.

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