50 years later, remembering the deadly Doraville Refinery Fire of 1972

Fifty years ago, an explosion at the Triangle Refinery in Doraville shook the entire community. It resulted in mass evacuations, a three-day-long fire and several casualties.

Todd Drummond was five years old on the morning of April 6, 1972, when it occurred. “It was a huge explosion. It felt like it had moved the house off the foundation,” Drummond said. He continued, “My father said, ‘Go with your mom.’ And I said, ‘I want to stay with you.’ And then he yelled at me to follow my mom, and my mom was gone. She was down the road in her nightgown, and she was trucking it out of there with my brother.”

The cause was an overfilled gas storage tank at the Doraville Triangle Refinery. Gas from the tank spilled over to a dike below, which led to a nearby neighborhood. The vapors from the gas were said to have been sparked by a home’s pilot light, causing the house to explode and set the storage tank ablaze.