Washington, WI – Mark Porter believes Jim Strauch should buy a lottery ticket.
He’s got to be one of the luckiest men alive, Porter, the public information officer for Township Fire Department, said about Strauch, who survived an explosion Sunday at his home at 8809 Hickory Road, south of Eau Claire in the town of Washington.
Fire officials believe the residential explosion the third to occur in the department’s service area since 2000 happened when something ignited liquid propane, but they might never know what the source of ignition was, Porter said Monday.
Even so, he is hoping property owners will use caution if they ever find themselves in a situation where there might be a gas leak in their homes or another building.
The minute you smell gas, exit the house, go to the neighbor’s and call the gas company, Porter said. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
The Madison-based Wisconsin Propane Gas Association also offers additional advice:
Make that phone call from a telephone outside the building.
Don’t turn on or off appliances, light switches or thermostats.
Because propane is denser than air, it will settle on the floor in areas that are not properly ventilated if there is a leak, and any ignition source could cause an explosion.
Shut off the gas supply if it is safe to do so.
Don’t return to the building until your propane retailer, emergency responder or a qualified service technician determines that it’s safe to do so.
On Sunday morning, Strauch detected an odor in his home that smelled like stinky onions, he said Monday at his property, where the 72-year-old had returned to look over what was left of the home where he had spent almost all of his life and cared for his livestock.
However, he hadn’t eaten the vegetable. The smell was more potent in his basement.
Investigating, Strauch said he could hear a hissing noise at the LP regulator, so he shut off the gas supply to the house and opened doors to his residence in hopes of dispersing the gas.
Strauch was inside the house when the gas ignited. He heard a boom as the home’s four walls blew outward. The blast ignited a portion of the two-story farmhouse, and the fire spread to the entire house in five to 10 minutes, he said.
Strauch, who was able to escape from his home, sustained a cut to his right hand that required stitches and a bruised right shoulder. His skin also was scorched, and he was transported to HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital, where he was treated and released.
I guess the Lord doesn’t want me yet, he said Monday at his property, where one of two vehicles destroyed Sunday was still smoking.
While the explosion and ensuing fire left little to be salvaged, Strauch was grateful his dog, a chocolate Lab-mix named Tuffles, was able to escape and his family and neighbors had come to his aid, loaning him clothes and a tank to water his cows.
In March 2000, a blast ripped through a town of Brunswick home, where a mother and her two children were home. The trio survived.
Court documents filed more than a year later placed the blame on LP gas, which entered the residence through a faulty gas valve.
A home in the town of Washington exploded in May 2013. The homeowners and three children were out of state on vacation.
Township Fire provides coverage to the Eau Claire County towns of Brunswick, Pleasant Valley, Seymour, Union and Washington and a portion of the town of Clear Creek. Firefighters from the Altoona and Fall Creek Fire departments provided mutual aid Sunday.