On this day twenty-five years ago I was ten years old and getting breakfast at a friend’s house after a sleepover when there was the distant sound of a large boom and a shiver under our feet. I thought it must have been a small earthquake. I didn’t know it then, but a gas tanker on the Saginaw River had just exploded.

Plan A was to let the fire burn itself out, so the inferno raged for 36 hours before authorities decided that they needed to try Plan B and actually fight the fire. For days after, I could see a plume of black smoke that faded slowly to gray. Even after crews thought the fire was out, it reignited and had to be suppressed again.

It was one of those things you remember because it seems so otherworldly. Explosions happen in movies, not real life. Miraculously, only one life was lost, an Iowa sailor who drowned while swimming away from the blast.

For an excellent article about the Jupiter explosion, click here. For more images, visit the Saginaw River Images blog.