Ririe, ID – The victim of a propane explosion in Ririe is recovering at the hospital Friday night.
The explosion happened Wednesday night.It was so big, it lifted the roof right off of the apartment complex where it happened.
Larry Clifford Reed lives in the apartment that exploded.From his hospital bed, he recalls, “I lit my lighter for a light and that was it, everything went up.”
Reed has burns all over his face and hands.”I don’t feel too great, I could have been dead but I’m not,” he says.
Reed says a new propane tank must have been leaking all day Wednseday in his Ririe apartment.Then at night when he when he went to light a cigarette a huge ball of flames engulfed his apartment. He recalls, “It’s just a big force and heat and fire swirling all around your face and burning you and stuff and throwing me backwards.”
Neighbors survey the damage and point out where the roof lifted off the building.
Miki Dea says, “It lifted straight up and sat right back down.”
On Friday, insulation and wood beams still lie in Reed’s front yard.”It sounded like a bomb and it shook entire complex,” recalls Dea.
Inside Reed’s apartment, insulation from the ceiling is completely burnt out.
A burned calendar, singed bed sheets and blackened curtains show the extent of the damage. The force of the explosion cracked reed’s ceiling and crumbled parts of the neighbors ceiling.
Reed says he’s unsure of when get out of the hospital but he says he’s had nothing but bad luck in Idaho and he wants to start over in a new state.
Reed says he had plans to hook the propane tank up to a heater, because the electricity was shut off when he was evicted from the apartment.
Reed says he didn’t pay rent because the heat hadn’t worked all winter in his unit and he didn’t want to pay for an apartment without heat.