McKee refinery fire
Fire on the Texas/Oklahoma border on 29 July 1956
The McKee refinery tank explosion and fire on Sunday, July 29, 1956, was an explosion and severe fire-related mass casualty event, killing 19 firefighters. The fire is considered to have the fourth-most (the September 11 attacks being first) casualties of fire fighters in the United States for a single fire event. Their names are engraved at the firefighters' memorial on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. Another memorial is on the grounds of the Moore County courthouse.
The refinery, located south of the Texas/Oklahoma border and seven miles south of Sunray, Texas, included a spherical tank containing 500,000 gallons of pentane and hexane. Vapors escaped from the tank and migrated downhill toward other installations. The vapors ignited, probably near an asphalt plant and travelled back toward the tank. There, the flames consumed the escaping vapors, forcing firefighters to use water to cool nearby tanks to prevent further spread.
The volunteer fire crews from nearby Sunray and Dumas were fighting the fire in a conventional manner, while the decision was made to reduce the amount of liquid in the burning tank. This increased the volume of the tank filled with explosive vapors.
The public source identifies “McKee refinery fire” as fire on the Texas/Oklahoma border on 29 July 1956. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around McKee, refinery and fire.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16932933. Authority coordinates are 35.956, -101.887. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “McKee refinery fire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.