Houston Personal Injury Lawyer

The most probable cause of the Barton Solvents fire Oct. 29 was static electricity, Iowa Fire Marshal Jim Kenkel said this week.

His office will issue a written report soon. Because it was an “accidental situation,” the report can be released when it is complete, Kenkel said.

Just how the static electricity came about is another question. The state fire marshal said when chemicals are being moved from a storage container through a pipe to a portable container, as was the case when the fire broke out at the plant just north of Des Moines, the equipment is required to be grounded.

Damage was such that investigators were unable to determine the status of the grounding equipment at that moment in time.

For hours, 55-gallon drums shot into the air like rockets. When they exploded they produced enormous balls of smoke and fire and the building that stored the barrels was devoured by flames and torn apart by explosions.

There were no serious injuries.

David Casten, president of Barton Solvents, which has six plants serving customers in 13 Midwestern states, said two people were filling a portable tank with a solvent when it ignited.