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The fire reached the Standard Oil bulk plant where Union volunteer firefighters doused the oil tanks with water.
"We were putting water on the tanks as best we could but it was starting to burn through the safety valves," Pautler said.
However, the safety valves were not completely destroyed. "The only thing that saved us was the safety valves," he added.
According to a news story published Nov. 18 in the Franklin County Tribune, the fire was discovered at 12:30 p.m. There were gallon drums of motor oil and alcohol exploding, and the northern and eastern areas of Union were covered with a "dense black smoke."
According to the newspaper's account, flames spread to the Union plant, which was loaded with antifreeze and lubricating oil drums, and four large gasoline and oil drums. The fire then threatened the Standard and Shell oil plants.
"Had the storage tanks at these the plants collapsed, the block housing, Farrell's Tavern and Eads Confectionery as well as the Farmers Elevator and the Oltmann building would have been destroyed and also many other residences," the Tribune reported.
Fire officials requested planes loaded with carbon dioxide to be dropped on the fire be flown from Scott Air Force Base and Lambert Field. However, once a truck with carbon dioxide reached the air fields to load the planes, the fire was under control, according to the Tribune.
A truck from Wood River, Ill., equipped with foam and carbon dioxide was used to fight the fire. The truck was escorted by state police traveling at speeds over 80 miles per hour.
"That the fire did not spread further was due to the heroic efforts of the firemen, coupled with a little luck.
"When the supporting frame of one of the large storage tanks of the Franklin County Oil Company collapsed, it plunged to the west and emptied burning gasoline and fuel oil into a plowed field. . . had the tank fallen to (the) east, certainly at least 20 or so firemen would have perished and the fire carried to the adjoining bulk plants."
Longtime firefighter Don Wilmesher, who was a child at the time of the fire, said the bulk plants had added, built-in safety measures.
"After that they all had dams around them," he said. "Those days there were a lot of gas fires on the railroad tracks."
"That's when they started doing pools by the tanks so the oil didn't run into the streams," added firefighter Jerry Borgmann.
Sherwood Kloppenberg, another longtime firefighter, was in high school during the fire. He remembers Nov. 16, 1949, as a "cold and windy day." He and classmates watched the fire from the gymnasium in the top floor of Union High School.
"I remember when the tanks exploded, you could really hear that," Kloppenberg said.
Kloppenberg noted that firefighters did not soon forget the historic blaze. "We talked about it a lot," he said. "We did go down and check the bulk plants once in a while."
Kloppenberg added there were some changes to the fire department after the oil plants were destroyed, including the purchase of a 1951 fire truck a couple of years after the fire. Prior to that, the department only had a 1933 model used for fires within the city limits.
Pautler added that following the fire, volunteer firefighters also received better equipment and used foam to fight fires when those items became available and the department could afford them.
