15 Explosions Rip Through Army
Camp in Northern Bosnia
LUKAVAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Kitchen stoves exploded early Tuesday at a mess hall in a U.S. Army camp in northern Bosnia, burning two American soldiers. A series of about 15 explosions that began just after 2 a.m. initially was presumed to be an attack, several soldiers said. One soldier was seriously burned on the face, hands and arms, and the other was burned on the arms and legs. The military withheld the identities of the injured soldiers — a man and a woman — until their relatives could be notified.The injured soldiers were flown by helicopter to the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital near Tuzla and were to be taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. The soldier with facial burns will be transported to Texas for treatment.
The fire apparently started when a cooking stove exploded while being turned on to prepare breakfast, setting off a chain reaction that included small arms fire, firefighters said. “It sounded like we were under attack,” said Pfc. Travis Ally, 24, of San Bernardino, Calif. Fire destroyed the temporary mess hall at Camp Punxsutawney, the U.S. base in Lukavac, 10 miles northwest of Tuzla.
“It sounded like bombs, because they were spaced perfectly,” said Ally, who was sleeping in a tent about 50 yards away when the explosions began. “It wasn’t boom, boom, boom. Some people had left their weapons there too, so when the explosion went off you heard bullets go off too. It was, like, boom, pop-pop-pop. Some people locked and loaded (their weapons), some people ran away,” he added.
Some soldiers said Army firefighters had trouble hooking up hoses and getting water to the fire. But Army fire officials said the fire was under control in an hour. They said the cause was under investigation. The fire appeared to have started at portable cooking rings, and firefighters said they were unsure whether the rings had been in the red brick mess hall or immediately behind it on an outdoor concrete slab. The twisted remains of the cooking rings, each with its own gas tank, lay scattered on the slab after the fire was extinguished.
Bosnian firefighters from Lukavac helped put out the fire, making do with hand signals until interpreters arrived. The mess hall, with two adjacent tents that were undamaged by the fire, had fed more than half the 2,400 soldiers at the base. This morning, temporary tables were set up outside the mess hall to distribute MREs, the U.S. military’s Meals Ready to Eat, bread rolls and milk. The Army said temporary facilities will be set up within three days to resume serving hot meals.
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