Gas tank explosion under investigation in Faraday

The Bancroft Ontario Provincial Police issued a media release on June 19 on their response and investigation into a reported explosion on Old Paudash School Road in Faraday Township. According to the release, on June 18 shortly after 4:30 p.m., OPP officers responded to this reported explosion, and they confirmed it was a gas cylinder explosion. No injuries were reported and the cause of the explosion is still under investigation.

Daryl and Deb who own Mystickal Paths Books and Gifts (www.facebook.com/MystickalPaths/, at the corner of Old Paudash School Road and Hwy 28, say the site of the explosion was the old school house on the road. Deb says her husband Daryl was home at the time.
“He heard and felt the explosion, and yes, our house did shake,” she says.

Lisa Ockenden rents an apartment at the front of the Old Paudash School where the explosion occurred, and she said she’d just sat down in the shade to have a coffee when she heard it.
“I had no idea where the bang came from. I thought it came from the direction of the lake. It was reported to us some hours later that it was a propane cylinder that had exploded at the rear of the property and that there was concern about a second cylinder. We were told by both Bancroft OPP and the Faraday Fire Department that HAZMAT was coming to deal with the second cylinder. That is all I know as of this time,” she says.

Constable Joel Devenish, the Bancroft OPP local media relations officer, told The Bancroft Times that as of June 19, the cause of the explosion is still unknown and there were still no updates as of June 22.
“It was a gas cylinder similar to one that would be used for welding,” he says.

The Bancroft Times also reached out to the Faraday Township Fire Department who was also on the scene, and Fire Chief Brian Sears says that he doesn’t know why the tank blew up, but he figures it was extreme heat that caused it. He said it was laying there in the backyard at the old school property.
“We’ve got the second tank encapsulated under sand now by GFL Environmental Inc. (www.gflenv.com) and I’m going to have them remove it. I don’t know what was in the tank that blew up or what’s in the other tank that’s now in sand. That type of tank could be used for six or seven gases. It blew and went 25 to 30 feet and hit an old truck on the property a few times and then went airborne 75 to 100 feet, cut the top off a red pine tree, and then came down. We were fortunate it didn’t go out onto Hwy 28, which was why we evacuated and closed off that section of the highway, he says. “We were really fortunate, really fortunate.”

Michael Riley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Bancroft Times