Tennessee OSHA Investigating Benton Oil Fire

Several questions remain unanswered from the fire behind Benton Oil Tuesday morning. That fire seriously injured employee Craig Fuqua of Ringgold, Georgia.

We spent this afternoon working through the details of Tuesday morning's fire at Benton Oil Service. Fuqua was severely burned around 7:30. His boss, Ross Benton, told us he visited him at Erlanger Medical Center and right now he does not need to be transported to a burn unit. Benton says he suffered second degree burns on his legs. who are searching for answers on this fire.

Several investigators are searching for answers to this fire that happened in a driving rainstorm. Those investigators include the Chattanooga fire department, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and we learned this afternoon Tennessee OSHA.

The fire department says it learned of the blaze from a passerby who drove up to Station 6 on Bonny Oaks Drive and alerted them to the fire.

Ross Benton didn't dispute that but says TWO of his employees quickly rushed to Fuqua's aid. Benton said, "My employees were right there on the spot. The 9-1-1 call happened within 30 seconds."

Now, investigators want to find out exactly what happened. They don't expect it to be a cut and dry answer. Chattanooga Fire spokesperson Bruce Garner said, "We'll be working on this for a while I think, trying to figure out what exactly happened. What the worket thought he was doing, what they asked him to do, what kind of petroleum product it is."

We found some answers from Benton.He told us the tank in question is a four thousand gallon underground run-off catch all tank. He says it is used to capture rainwater and or fuel if trucks have any spills when filling up.

Benton says Fuqua was trying to pump out rainwater during the heavy rains Tuesday. Benton says he suspects the ignition point came from the motorized pump. And he added a thin film of petroleum was on top of the water and those vapors ignited.

Benton said, "He (Fuqua) was transferring water out of a pump. There was petroleum mixed in with water."

This afternoon, we confirmed with Tennessee OSHA its investigation opened yesterday. TOSHA tells us these type of investigations typically run four to six weeks.