‘Freak accident’: Kansas fire chief recalls explosion that engulfed him in flames

Russell fire chief Dylan Riedel now owns the motorcycle gas tank that changed his life forever when it exploded and engulfed him in flames this summer.

It’s “just as a constant reminder that your life can change in an instant, so don’t take it for granted,” he said.

The explosion happened less than 30 seconds after he got out of his fire truck. A football-size hole burst in the side of the gas tank, sending flames across the street.

“It’s a freak accident … It just so happened I was in the right place at the wrong time and it happened to me,” Riedel said.

The June fire sent him to the emergency room at Russell Regional Hospital before he was airlifted to Ascension Via Christi St. Francis burn unit in Wichita. He had burns on his head, neck, arms and legs. Most were first and second-degree but doctors think one spot was a third-degree burn.

Riedel was back to work without restrictions by mid-July.

But he still has to wear a compression wrap on his left hand when he sleeps at night to help with the scar tissue.

He expects to have lifetime pains on that hand and his left ear. Riedel’s skin is also sunken in on his shin where he had his most serious burns. And, he’s recently noticed his arms turn purple when it gets cold.

It’s an incident he will never forget.

Detached garage fire

The 31-year-old responded to the detached garage fire at 9:06 p.m. on June 2. He is the only full-time person in the volunteer department. A fire truck with volunteers was a couple minutes behind him.

Someone had been working on a motorcycle in the garage when it backfired and a fire started, he said.

Russell officer Trevor Musgrove was already on scene and using a fire extinguisher when Riedel arrived.

Riedel moved in to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. Then a gas tank on the ground exploded.

He felt the heat before the explosion.

“I was actually standing off to the side of the garage, using the garage as cover at the time,” he said. “It basically mushroom-clouded out and it shot across the street. We have bystanders saying they saw it shoot all the way across the street. And it essentially just engulfed me in flames.”

He hit the ground and rolled and crawled into the neighbor’s yard. He was able to smother out the flames.

“I knew I had been hit,” he said. “I just tried to get away from it so that way it didn’t cause any damage.”

Musgrove rushed to his side. The call went out for “mayday, firefighter down,” according to Russell County 911 Communications.

Musgrove grabbed a water extinguisher, which is pressurized water, off Riedel’s truck to cool him down after Riedel told him that he felt heat all over his body.

“They believe everything on skin was just flash burns, but enough to do first, second and maybe one spot of third-degree,” Riedel said. “You could see some singe marks on my clothes. My tennis shoes, the shoe laces were burnt.”

He didn’t need any surgery or skin grafts. He said he was “wrapped like a mummy” all over his body with medicine to help with the burns.

Riedel returned home the next week.

For the next few weeks, his mother, Penny Riedel, would help with his care several times a day. It involved removing the dead skin and medication from his head and face and then applying new medicine.

Besides his ear and hand, he expects most everything to go back to normal. He thanked the first responders and medical teams for that.

“I am very fortunate,” he said. “I’ve told so many people that if I had to wish something on my worst enemy, it wouldn’t be burns because that’s not for anybody. That’s so terrible.”

In the days after, he did have flashbacks and nightmares about what happened.

“Those are pretty few and far in between at this time and they are not negatively affecting me,” he said in November. “We are back to business as usual with a greater emphasis on safety and making sure everybody goes home every night.”

Riedel said he has a great support system in the community and work.

Future of the gas tank

Riedel was born and raised in Russell. It’s also where his family lives. He has a 5-year-old German Shepard named Gamora, after the comic book turned movie character in Guardians of the Galaxy.

“Because I am a huge nerd under my whole fire chief persona,” he said.

He started with the department during his senior year in high school in 2010. He became chief in 2018.

The June incident was the first time he had been injured on the job.

He said 99 out of 100 times in that same scenario, the gas tank wouldn’t have exploded.

“They’re going to burn, there’s not going to be an explosion, there might be some popping from a tire or something,” he said. “This doesn’t happen. And just happened to be that one time out of 100 that this gas tank was plugged, wasn’t able to vent, and it just blew.”

Riedel said he’s also been asked 100 times if he is going to give up being a firefighter because of what happened.

“I love being able to give something in my community that ultimately gives back and I can be there for people in their worst times,” he said. “Russell is such a tight knit community. You don’t go down the street without knowing your neighbor, whoever you are passing by. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else at this point in time.”

He added: “I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Now if I get blown up a second time, that could change.”

Riedel asked the owner of the motorcycle if he could have the gas tank. Another firefighter has sand-blasted it for him. He plans to have all the first-responders who helped him sign it.

He’s still trying to figure out where to put it after that.