ROGERS, Texas — On Friday, 6 News obtained video that shows the moments leading up to an explosion at a Rogers, Texas car wash where two teenagers were injured back in January.
The explosion happened at an Exxon car wash, next door to Rogers Liquors, at 120 W. Mesquite Ave. on Jan. 18 just before 9 p.m. (The video has a timestamp that's an hour ahead of what authorities stated.)
At the beginning of the video, you see one of the teens inside the car wash bay soaking down his vehicle, with another person standing outside below the "car wash" sign. As the teen is fiddling with the buttons on the wall (starting at 2:38 in the video), an explosion occurs, causing the sign to fall, as well as other building damage.
The person standing outside immediately rolls out of the way and is seen running off-screen. Moments later, the person who was inside the car wash bay emerges from the building's damage and runs out of the car wash bay. According to fire officials that day, the two were treated for second-degree burns and some minor injuries.
"Those two young men are very lucky that they didn't get killed," said Bell County Fire Marshal Shane Geers. "They were injured pretty seriously, but they were able to walk away from it. When we saw that video and we saw them kids get out of there, it was just a good feeling to see that nobody was more seriously hurt after watching that type of explosion."
Geers told 6 News all the elements to cause the explosion were there, it was described as the 'perfect storm.' According to Geers, the official cause of the explosion was due to fuel vapors being ignited by an electrical arc inside the storage unit of the car wash. Geers added that the fuel vapors were ignited after the teen activated the car wash controller, as seen in the video.
"You had to have the fuel tanks being filled to push the vapor up, you also had to have [the teens] actively using the carwash and stirring up everything inside that environment to get the ignition," Geers explained. "All of the elements were in place at that exact moment."
Without the surveillance footage capturing the terrifying moment, Geers said they wouldn't have had concrete answers that it was a vapor explosion and would've been left guessing.
The Bell County Fire Marshal said since the explosion happened, there have been some changes at the location too.
"That existing vapor pipe that is still there, they've gone ahead and ran it all the way up through and put the proper scrubbers on it so that it ventilates safely," Geers added.
Geers was able to explain when other residents could be in a hazardous situation like the two teens were in this moment.
"When you're at a gas station and you're pumping your gas and you start to smell that telltale smell of gas vapor coming from your car, you're relatively safe," Geers explained. "But, a simple static spark could ignite that vapor and cause your tank to rupture."
The Fire Marshal's Office stated the explosion was accidental. Geers said it was a coincidence that there was another explosion and electrical fires in Rogers around this same time.
Watch the video below: