Savage Sky from Oil Fire Disaster Photo

Photographer’s Note

This morning in the UK, just before 6 a.m., we experienced an event that officials are calling "the biggest incident of its kind in peacetime Europe". Explosions tore through Buncefield Oil depot in Hemel Hempstead, north of London, shooting flames and billowing smoke hundreds of feet into the air, smashing the windows of nearby homes and causing widespread damage.

Hours later, the sky was still blackened by a wall of smoke which had drifted miles across Southern England and was big enough to be visible on space satellite images.

I took this picture from the back of my house at
4.30 p.m...ten and a half hours after the explosion.
You can see the surreal nature of the sky, caused by the smoke.

We live approximately 20 miles from Hemel Hempstead and I heard the blast this morning. It rattled the windows. Apparently, the blast could be heard as far away as Holland and France.

This image was hand held, sharpened, resized and bordered and I ran it through NeatImage to remove some noise.

Thanks for taking the time to look.

Traveller, pamastro, skeelerik, cjmm has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

lukie (0) 2005-12-11 17:39

Hello Vicky,

I just arrive home from 12 hours working, I didn't hear the news until now... I hope this doesn't destroy the nature to much...

regards,

Luc.

Traveller (665) 2005-12-11 18:10

Excellent journalistic job on photo and a note, keeping us updated, thanks! I also hope very much that this will not destroy the nature, what I doubt though...

cam (8880) 2005-12-11 20:44

Hello vicky
I heard about the explosion tonight after work,so your photo is very actual(sorry for my english)and very sinister.The night during the day.
Hope the damage will be minimal.
Charles

pamastro (7213) 2005-12-11 21:20

I noticed you were recently putting up sunset photos so this is certainly a contrast to the peaceful evenings of the last several days I'm sure. The sky is certainly spooky and foreboding so long after the blast. Everything weighs down really heavily on the town beneath this dark sky. But I wonder if you could have used a longer exposure, just to get more light beneath and also perhaps some more patterns in the dark sky. But it still does capture a very unreal feel like the coming of some kind of apocalypse.

jemaflor (39289) 2005-12-12 13:24

Hi Vicky,
impressive shot and good photonews, well captured. congratulation.

r_bodenschatz (134) 2005-12-12 17:07

Without your note and our knowleldge of the disaster it would be just an ordinary picture taken at dusk and not very spectacular.

skeelerik (763) 2005-12-13 9:54

Hi Vicky,
It's indeed a great disaster and I hope they will extinguish the fire soon. I hope it will not damage more nature than it has done already. Must have been scaring to feel the explosions living so far away from the blast. Looking through your gallery I noticed that your pictures were taken almost all of them in bright weatherconditions. I thought Great Britain is known for its rainy and foggy days. Were you lucky or did you do it on purpose? As you've seen in my last post (thanks for your friendly words) one can make some pretty pics with bad weatherconditions. Best regards, Erik