On July 4, 1948, a fire engulfed the Kuibyshev transshipment oil depot. It was the largest oil storage fire in the history of the USSR. Fighters of fire brigades saved the city from death. Many of them gave their lives in doing so.
Lightning strike
That day Kuibyshev was watered in the morning like a bucket. The noise of the rain was interrupted by thunderous rolls, the cloudy sky was crossed by arrows of lightning.
At 10:25 am, one of them hit tank # 18 of the Glavneftesnab transshipment base. A fiery torch soared into the sky.
Reference. Kuibyshevskaya oil depot in 1948 consists of 33 surface tanks with capacities from 2.400 to 5.000 tons. On the day of the tragedy, 63.968 tons were stored in 29 containers. petroleum products. Tank No. 18, which was struck by lightning, contained 4,256 tons that day. crude oil.
At 10:28 (3 minutes later) the soldiers of the oil depot fire brigade started localizing the fire, and at 10:35 am 6 fire trucks arrived at the oil depot. But even before their arrival, tanks No. 16 (445 tons of kerosene) and No. 17 (977 tons of oil) caught fire.
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The person who was not afraid to take responsibility
On one of the six vehicles that arrived, the UPO operational duty officer, Captain Telki, arrived. This day was his day off, he went to the fire station for just a few minutes. Hearing the alarm, he jumped on the step of the first fire engine that caught his eye.
Arriving at the site, he took over the command of extinguishing the fire and full responsibility. Immediately he assigned the highest degree of danger to the fire, ordered to announce a fire alarm in the city, gave instructions to begin the evacuation of the river, standing on the opposite bank. Samara maternity hospital and called all available firefighters from the area. This fire will be his last, Captain Telki will not return home from it.
11:05
At 11:05, another 7 cars with fire brigades arrived at the crash site, a fire train approached the railway line, and a fire boat and 2 ferries from the river. All fire service employees and police were alerted. Half an hour later, 50 cadets of the aviation and naval school and a formed combined detachment of workers of the river fleet and the oil depot arrived at the disposal of the firemen. The control of the extinguishing was transferred from Telki to the heads of the region's fire service who arrived at the scene.
By 14:00 more than 300 people were involved in fighting the fire. The first and main task assigned to them was to localize the source of the fire. At 14:30, oil boiling in tank no. 18 gushed through the neck and rushed towards tank no. 19 with 3.740 tons. diesel oil. The flames engulfed the storage, the amount of burning oil products increased by one and a half times.
14:40
At 14:40, one of the burning tanks (No. 17) exploded. A flurry of fire went in all directions, in which in a matter of seconds people who got in its way were burned alive. There were not even remains of many. The wave rolled to the opposite shore, where people also suffered. Oil spilled over the surface of the river. From the side it seemed that both the earth and the water were on fire.
Save the city
The tank farm was built in pre-revolutionary times. Closely adjacent to it was the urban area of Shchepnovka, built up with one-story wooden houses. The first house broke out, followed by the second. Jumping from building to building, the flame moved towards the central part of the city.
To eliminate the danger, 200 soldiers of the Kuibyshev garrison were sent to help the firefighters. Fire engines were installed on steamers and ferries and driven to the pier of the burning oil depot. At 19:50 there was a second fiery ejection, then 2 more.
Only by nightfall the riot of the elements began to subside. The fire was finally extinguished at 10:10 on 5 July.
Classified
A government commission arrived in Kuibyshev to investigate the causes that led to the disaster and assess the actions of the fire services, city and party leadership. A huge number of violations were revealed that did not allow the fire to be extinguished in a timely manner. The materials of the commission's work were of a closed nature.
Based on the results of the commission's work, certain organizational conclusions were drawn that affected the leadership of Glavneftesbyt, the party and city elite of Kuibyshev. In 1948, the perpetrators were punished without the current sentimentality.
At the same time, the commission assessed the actions of fire brigades and the leadership of the fire service in the fight against fire as "excellent". Only thanks to their competent actions, the fire was limited to 4 containers out of 33. It’s scary to imagine what would have happened if everyone had caught fire. Kuibyshev would have to be built from scratch, like Stalingrad destroyed by the war.
The commission's conclusion was accompanied by a list of 57 names - persons represented for military awards. Against 13 names there was a posthumous mark.
We honor and remember
Every year on July 4, people in the uniform of a fire service come to the Samara city cemetery to honor the memory of their colleagues who died in 1948 and were buried here in a mass grave. Visitors bare their heads, arriving fire engines break the silence with sirens. Samara remembers the heroes who saved the city at the cost of their lives.