PULASKI, Wis. – As many as 40 teenagers were burned at a loosely organized after-hours homecoming bonfire after somebody rolled a 55-gallon barrel of diesel fuel and gasoline into the fames. Shawno County Sheriff Adam Bieber called the situation confused. Nobody called 911. The sheriff’s office learned of the explosion from a Green Bay hospital, 20 miles away, when carloads of burn victims began showing up in the emergency room. The fire was at a remote booze-partying site off County Road F on Cedar Drive. The sheriff said it appeared the property owner was unaware. One witness told a WBAY television reporter that flames spewed from the barrel like a flame thrower. Then a giant mushroom fireball shot upward. At the hospital some victims were treated and released. The most severely burned were airlifted 120 miles to Milwaukee and 140 miles to Madison.
Scorched barrel. With clutter amid the party site at dawn. The explosion was about 1 a.m.