Print edition: 
The explosion and fire that killed a worker at a Butler County propane company last week occurred after a coupling broke as a worker was filling a 33-pound propane cylinder, a Butler County Fire District No. 3 official said Friday.
Fire Chief Jim Woydziak said the fire at Global Propane sent several of the 33-pound cylinders flying up to 400 feet through the air. It damaged or destroyed 11 vehicles parked at the business and destroyed three nearby homes.
Woydziak said investigators may never know what caused the coupling to break or what caused the spark that ignited the gas.
The explosion occurred just after 2 p.m. Aug. 2 at the business at 13323 SW Butler Road, between Andover and Rose Hill.
Jeffrey S. Burnham, 40, of Wichita, died after being taken to a Wichita hospital, and two other workers were injured.
Shortly before the explosion, Burnham was working around a truck carrying 200 cylinders that are typically used to power forklifts, Woydziak said.
The truck was backed into an enclosure that had three walls and a canopy, Woydziak said. The enclosure was used to fill the cylinders from a nearby 18,000-gallon tank.
As Burnham was filling one of the cylinders, Woydziak said, something caused the coupling to come loose from the cylinder. The hose immediately began flailing around as propane spewed from the end.
Woydziak said the enclosure was probably filled with propane when a spark ignited the gas.
"By the time it sparked, it had been spewing long enough that there was probably a very large fireball right there," he said.
The blast sent flames up to 60 feet in the air and damaged pipes under the large tank, and those pipes also began leaking propane.
The large tank burned well into the night before finally burning itself out around 11 p.m.
Woydziak said a nearby delivery truck that uses a 3,000-gallon tank to deliver propane to homes also caught fire. That tank burned throughout the night and finally went out at about 8:30 the next morning.
The Kansas State Fire Marshal's Office is leading the investigation into the blast, Woydziak said.
"It's very likely that nobody will ever know what caused the spark," he said.
