Natural-Gas Pipeline Explodes Near Everson

EVERSON, Whatcom County - A natural-gas pipeline exploded last night, causing flames to shoot hundreds of feet into the air in a fireball that could be seen for miles around this town south of the Canadian border.

It was not immediately clear if there were injuries.

"I can hear the roar of the fire right now," said Mike Buchholz, who was about 1 1/2 miles from the fire, filming it on his video camera. "It's incredible. It sounds as if it's getting louder."

Buchholz said the flames were coming from a deserted hillside just outside of Everson and that there were no homes in the area.

Local firefighters, including those from Everson and nearby Lynden, were at the site of the fire, battling the blaze an hour after it first erupted about 10 p.m., police said.

The explosion apparently occurred in a natural-gas pipeline, 36 inches in diameter, in the 6400 block of Goodwin Road in unincorporated Whatcom County near Everson. The farming town of about 1,200 people is northeast of Bellingham and about 90 miles south of the Washington-Canadian border.

Eyewitnesses as far as 40 miles away could see the night sky light up from the massive flames.

"You just can't imagine this huge, pink, pulsing light in the northwestern sky," said Jack de Yonge, who lives near the town of Concrete, about 40 miles south of the explosion.

"It's covering about 30 to 40 percent of the horizon from where I'm looking."

Ray Rediger, who lives about three miles from the fire, said he was watching television when he heard what sounded like an airplane crash.

"It sounded like a jet was flying over, then like a crash," Rediger said. "You could feel everything shake and we just saw the sky light up."

Rediger said he could still see flames shooting about 200 feet in the air an hour and a half after the initial explosion.

Rediger, who also was listening to a police scanner, said police and fire dispatchers were coordinating efforts to put out the fire, but they were also busy trying to redirect traffic away from the blaze.

"They were apparently having a hard time getting people out of the area," Rediger said.

"There was a steady stream of car headlights on this road - people apparently trying to get a better view of what happened."