Nearly all the evacuated residents were back in their homes as of last night.
Authorities said that four firefighters were treated for heat-related illnesses. Three Scully employees were injured, one of whom was listed in critical condition at Crozer-Chester Medical Center with undisclosed injuries. Bill Lovejoy, the Delaware County spokesman, said that the cause of the massive fire was still under investigation - a change from earlier in the day, when authorities indicated that the fire was started when a Scully employee fumbled a propane tank. (The company also distributes propane.)
Many evacuated residents relived their brush with the inferno at a Folcroft fire station, on Delmar Drive near Primose Avenue, which Red Cross officials used as a temporary shelter.
The explosions that triggered the blaze "almost knocked me out of my bed," said Elmer Ingram, who noted that his home on North Wells Avenue is a couple of hundred feet away from Scully Welding.
"I went outside and saw [propane cans] shooting 20 feet in the air," he said. "I must have heard 40 or 50 explosions. They shook the house."
About the same time that Ingram was watching the propane cans fly, Michelle Johnson said she got a phone call at work from her daughter Destiny, 12.
"She told me that it looked like that movie '2012' outside," Johnson said. "I dropped whatever I had in my hands. I almost fell over."
Destiny said that she peered outside her home on Bonsall Avenue after hearing a string of loud noises.
"There were people running down the street, and I could see the fire," she said. "I was kind of upset."
