First View of the Fire, Day one • October 20, 1991

This was the first time I saw the fire, just after I walked out of a meeting. I had never seen anything like this before, fires yes, but this had the look of Armageddon. I had no idea what it was. No one looking at it at that moment had any idea what this was. I did not have a cell phone, there was no such thing. There was no internet to look this up on. There was only astonished passersby rambling theories about exploding tankers. It turned out to be far worse as we would learn later in the evening