Three hurt in well flash fire
Brett DunlapHARRISVILLE - Three people were injured Thursday afternoon after a flash fire at an oil well in rural Ritchie County, officials said today.
The brief blaze occurred around 1:25 p.m. at a well along Bear Run Road off state Route 53, said Dana Nutt, chief of the Harrisville Volunteer Fire Department.
Four workers were at the site at the time of the incident. One suffered burns to an arm, two were knocked down and one was unhurt.
Nutt did not have the names of the men readily available. He knew three were transported to an area hospital, but he was not sure which one.
The well is owned by the Z Oil Co. of Harrisville, Nutt said.
The cause of the fire is not known at this time and the incident is still under investigation by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The state fire marshal has also been notified.
Officials said the fire occurred around the wells head.
A church group from the Pleasant View Baptist Church in Wood County who were in the area riding ATVs were able to transport the four men to the main road where emergency medical personnel could reach them, Nutt said.
The well site ``was in an area where only someone with serious 4-wheel drive could reach it,' Nutt said. ``Those guys carried the workers a few miles on their ATVs. We all thanked them about 15 times.'
It took fire officials a little bit of time to find the site, because of the sites remoteness.
Once they located the site, Nutt said there wasn't much damage to the site itself, except a blackened tank.
``The fire put itself out,' he said.
Officials secured the site and investigators have been going over it.
Harrisville VFD responded with five firefighters and two trucks.
The Wirt County Volunteer Fire Department was called to assist and responded with eight people, an engine, a tanker and two brush trucks.
