NEVER EVER PUT WATER ON hot/burning OIL !!!!!

Confucius say: People who stare at fire will be get burned.

Seriously though, who stands around watching a burning building filled with oil?

All hell broke loose!
the cameraman got balls.. he really took his time to gtfo of there.

damn, that was a natural slow-mo explosion ... reminded me of invisible fire...

Serious stuff. Even in a considerable distance it was dangerous. Imagine in a bigger oil tank, or even in a small one.. but we are much close to it. Case to think about.

I though they where going to turn Black at the end
0:44 why does this man take his hat off?

#1 - Of course you don't put water on an oil fire, BUT you CAN use water on the exterior of a tanker to try to keep the temperature down to help keep it from exploding.

real men dont look at explosions

no lifes where lost phew thank god at least, that could have gone wrong in so many ways.

you think firemen would know not to put water on burning oil??!!

#7 Oil could not burn inside the tanker (need Oxygen)...Seems like a leak...

#11 - I didn't suspect that there was any fire inside the tank, but as they mention at 0:25 that excessive heat can cause an explosion.

Years ago I was talking to a firefighter friend of mine, telling him about the house my mother had just purchased. It was a brick home with a VERY narrow walkway in between it and the next house. He mentioned that situations like that were a PITA, because if one house was burning, they had to be sure to keep the neighboring house hosed off to keep the temp down to keep the interior of that from igniting.

Fire needs 3 things. Oxygen, fuel, and heat. Water doesn't just suffocate a fire, but it's also used to bring temperatures down below that of ignition.

Using water to cool the tank is correct. If there is an opening in the tank you can hose it down with a special foam used for firefighting to create a layer on the surface of the oil which in turn would extinguish the fire. For that large of a fire however they would need a heck of a lot of foam which more than likely was not readily available. There are usually foam task forces which would be dispatched from all over the county or possibly even the state. That looks to be a very rural area so the nearest additional foam supply could have been hours away.

Michael Bay approves of this video.

I'm sorry, but this belongs in accidents.

It probably sucked all the oxygen out of that 200 meter zone judging by how big that 'cylinder' of flame got, never mind the heat surprised no one suffocated either

Wouldn't it have been better to lay down flat, instead of running away? Not that I would have thought of that at the time. Captain Hindsight, away!

you know with the word explosion in the video name, i think Marvin the Martian said it best: Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

#8 they create them?

I remember a video of tank like this exploding with a big bang :o

It's probable some kind of foam they put on the fire. And i bet the only use water to cool the outside of the tanks.

Tank God