Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 3, 1992 TAG: 9201030143
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
FATAL TENT FIRE FUELED BY GAS
Gasoline spilled inside a tent fueled the fire that killed two Franklin County teen-agers in July and left a third burned, an official report says."We know they had spilled gasoline in the tent as [recently] as the night before," David Laurrell, the county's public safety director, said Thursday. "We have statements and we have evidence. It turns out the boys had, on occasion, sniffed gasoline for recreational purposes."
Laurrell would not explain further.
The report, released Thursday, confirms investigators' earlier conclusions that a campfire burned beyond its borders and through underbrush, igniting the floor of the American Camper-brand tent and the bedding inside.
"We figure from the time of ignition to the time of full engulfment was 45 seconds," Laurrell said. "That's not a lot of time." Investigators estimate the boys may have had only 25 seconds from the time they were fully awake to when the tent collapsed in flames.
Jordan Thacker, then 15, was awakened early July 10 to find his legs on fire. He escaped by ripping a hole in the the side of the nylon-and-vinyl tent. His two companions - Jason Andrew "Jay" Davis and Shawn Shumate Wilkerson - were trapped inside. They later died at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.
The tent was pitched uphill from the campfire, which smoldered only 14 inches from the tent's front while the boys slept. When the tent caught on fire, it collapsed downhill - and into the campfire.
The traces of gasoline found on charred remains of the tent complete the mystery for investigators, who spent seven weeks trying to determine why the tent had burned so quickly.
Laurrell had said in August that it took blankets, sleeping bags and clothes - or whatever else the boys had inside their tent - to feed the fire that melted the tent around two of them.
In tests conducted this summer, Laurrell and his colleagues used an identical tent and nearly identical bedding in an attempt to re-enact the blaze. Polyester fibers in the collection of blankets, sleeping bags and a comforter fueled the fire, they concluded.
"The bedding went up really quickly," he said Thursday, "and add to that the gasoline . . . ."
The burned shards of the test tent also were examined to see if traces of petroleum were a byproduct of its destruction by fire. No gasoline residue was found, Laurrell said, suggesting that gasoline had somehow been at the campsite that night.
Keywords:
FATALITY