Canadian Oil Well 'Splodes; One Dead

From Yahoo Canada:
BROOKS, Alta. (CP) - Thick, black smoke could be seen from the Trans-Canada Highway on Tuesday after an oil well exploded near this southern Alberta town, killing one worker and injuring three others.
Officials evacuated campers at Tillebrook Provincial Park and two families living near the well site, which is five kilometres southeast of the town of 11,000.
Brooks Mayor Don Weisbeck, who watched the well spew flames six metres into the air from a mere kilometre away, was relieved there was no evacuation of his community.
But he admitted to some nervousness when he first heard about the explosion.
"You could smell the sulphur," he said. "You could smell the gas burning, but it wasn't a putrid smell or anything like that.
"Anytime you hear sour gas you get a little nervous."
The explosion happened as a contract company was working on the new oil well, which has a sour gas content, to bring it into service, said Darin Barter, spokesman with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board.
However, he stressed the sour gas content was very low, just 1,200 parts per million.
"Gas isn't being vented into the atmosphere," he explained. "What's happening is it's being burned off."
The dead worker, identified by RCMP Const. Kerry Doran as a 24-year-old from Lloydminster on the Saskatchewan boundary, was working right in the vicinity of the well, possibly right over top of it, Barter said.
The three injured workers were taken to hospital.