When I first came to Alaska, my wife and I lived in this crummy old trailer with no electricity. We heated with a wood stove, and used propane for cooking and illumination. Two big propane tanks were outside, but we used a five-gallon tank in the tiny living room (the trailer was only 8 feet wide) with a gadget up top with a mantle.

Once, when she was Outside, the tank ran out, so I took it to the local general store, got it filled, and went to hook it back up. Unbeknownst to me, I had cross-threaded the fittings, and when I opened the valve, propane flooded the area. When it got to the pilot light on the stove, it fucking exploded. WhOOMP! It blew out one of the kitchen windows and set fire to a bunch of stuff in the living room. I managed to toss everything outside that was on fire, and just beat out the flames on the sofa. I sustained some burns on my hands, but that was it, except for a fierce adrenalin rush.

BTW, that movie stuff--shoot a propane tank and it explodes--just doesn't happen. They even get the color of the flames wrong--propane burns blue. Shoot a propane tank and it just leaks. The gas has to be confined in order for it to actually explode, and as explosions go, it isn't that much of a big deal.

Yes! This!
People need to realise that gas tanks (propane, fuel, etc ...) do not explode! Fire hazard, sure, but not explosives!

On another note: Are you all allright? No burns or vision/hearing damages?

Not confined to explode, that doesn't matter, it's about ratio with oxygen. There is a certain percentage range where gases like propane can explode, the numbers being different for different fuels.


BUT, also, depending on concentration in the air, like above, but ALSO the amount, it can DDT, which stands for deflagration to detonation transition, where you actually get supersonic decomposition and it is then technically classified as a high explosive.

All kinds of fuels can do this, even solid fuels such as grain dust.


It's not the confinement, but the ratio of gas/oxygen, as well as intimacy of mixture.

You're right. The tank won't explode, but the gas certainly can, given the right ratio. Remember, come winter, a number of dwellings in the U.S. suddenly become kindling. It's like gasoline; it doesn't explode...until the fuel-air ratio gets to the right point. Then 1 cup = one stick of dynamite.

Ah the all powerful antithesis. Thermobaric weapons do not compare in the least to high explosives. While an FAE has the VOD high enough to be considered detonation, it is not as powerful as a true high explosive.

I still have a few light scars on my hands, from burning plastic which got on them as I was pitching out a bunch of bubble wrap that was stored in the area. Few third-degree burns, no biggies.