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<\/p>\nOn April 17, 2013, a tragedy unfolded in a the town of West, Texas, as an explosion erupted at a seed and fertilizer storage facility.<\/p>\n
WEST, Texas \u2014 It was just another business in a small, Central Texas town.<\/p>\n
West Fertilizer Company had been serving farmers living near Waco since 1962. But on a warm, spring night in 2013, the building caught fire.<\/p>\n
Volunteer firefighters fought the blaze for about 20 minutes, before the worst thing happened: a massive explosion of more than 30 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.<\/p>\n
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Twelve firefighters and three people who lived near the plant died.<\/p>\n
The blast injured nearly 200 people and destroyed two schools, a nursing home, an apartment complex and many homes. The explosive fertilizer had been stored in the building where the fire started.<\/p>\n
But how did the fire start?<\/p>\n
Three years after the explosion following a lengthy investigation, there was a stunning announcement from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. An investigator announced that the fire was incendiary, an intentional act.<\/p>\n
The ATF hasn\u2019t revealed what led it to its conclusion, and no one as of yet has been charged with the crime.<\/p>\n
Now 13 years after the explosion, there has been little change in regulations for businesses that store ammonium nitrate despite the urging of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency.<\/p>\n
Among its recommendations, non-flammable storage bins and water sprinklers in facilities that handle the chemical.<\/p>\n
In 2023, on the tenth anniversary of the tragedy, the people of West held a memorial service to honor those who died. A town that has been rebuilt and moved on, but that will never forget April 17, 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On April 17, 2013, a tragedy unfolded in a the town of West, Texas, as an explosion erupted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-253831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-texas","9":"tag-texas-headlines","10":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}