BERNE — When the home of two well-known Berne residents, Victor and Lois Porlier, exploded last June, it shook their small community — literally and figuratively. 

The blast completely destroyed their 5,600-square-foot, three-story home and killed the Porliers. Berne resident Caitlin Rice told The Enterprise that, on the night of the explosion, she and her family heard “what sounded like a car backfiring, or a really loud shotgun” as they enjoyed a backdoor barbecue roughly four miles away. It wasn’t until Rice looked over a photo of her daughter she took that night that she saw thick, black smoke rising above the tree-line. 

“As we drove back home, we watched the dark smoke grow thicker and thicker, and flames shoot out above the trees,” Rice said at the time. “People were pulled over, everywhere, watching the fire from a distance.”

Authorities have recently concluded that the explosion was caused by propane that leaked into the home from an uncapped gas line in the home’s basement, set aflame “by an electrical arc produced during the normal operation of an appliance in that area,” a report from the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services states. 

The report also declares that the explosion was accidental. 

When propane leaks and mixes with air, its density is such that it can cover wide areas, with “continued migration … governed by air movement and diffusion,” the report says.

On the morning of the explosion, the propane tanks had been filled by a private company, the report says, though there’s no suggestion that the company, which goes unnamed, had done anything wrong. Instead, testimony from a neighbor of the Porliers reveals that, after the neighbor had helped Victor Porlier move a propane-fueled appliance out of the basement in July of 2020, he had offered to purchase and install a gas cap, but Porlier deferred, saying he had one and would install it later.

“An uncapped propane supply line within the basement could not be eliminated as a probable source of the fugitive liquid propane gas vapor source for the explosion,” the report says.

Inspector J.T. Campbell, of the Albany County Sheriff’s office, told The Enterprise shortly after the explosion that the investigation was aware of a battery system in the Porlier residence that was connected to solar panels elsewhere on the property, suggesting that they were an early focus.

However, the report states that these batteries were, at the very least, not the cause of ignition. The report does not appear to say whether they contributed to the size of the explosion as the investigation was focused on the origin.