On Saturday, August 19, 2000, at approximately 0530 (5:30 a.m.) Mountain Daylight Time, 30-inch diameter El Paso Natural Gas transmission line 1103 ruptured near where the pipeline crosses the Pecos River (El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline Pecos River Crossing), adjacent to New Mexico Route 725 in Eddy County, New Mexico, a rural area (county population 52,000, 2000 census) about 30 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico. After the rupture, a natural gas fire started and burned for almost an hour before firefighters brought it under control. The fire killed seven adults, three children and two infants and destroyed three pickup trucks. The trucks had been driven unwittingly across the buried pipeline to reach the area adjacent to the bridge carrying large natural gas pipelines across the Pecos River. Miscellaneous camping equipment, campfires and gasoline lanterns were found near the campers’ trucks

About 0530, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report, "a 911-call receiver (operator) received numerous telephone calls from residents in the area who reported a large explosion and fire. The 911-call receiver received a telephone call from an off duty El Paso Natural Gas employee who lived near the accident site. The employee gave the 911-call receiver the location of the fire, and stated that there had been a large fire. The same employee witnessed the residual fire and assisted in the rescue of survivors. The El Paso [Natural Gas] coordinator also called the New Mexico State police."

"At 0531, the 911-call receiver paged members of the Loving Volunteer Fire Department, Happy Valley Volunteer Fire Department, Joel Volunteer Fire Department and Otis Volunteer Fire Department. At 0535, the Carlsbad Fire Department was notified to respond. At 0538, the Carlsbad Fire Department was en route and arrived on scene at 0612. Although the location of the fire was in rural Eddy County, incident command was turned over to the Assistant Chief of the Carlsbad Fire Department by the Loving Volunteer Fire Department because of the large number of injuries and the crucial need for emergency medical personnel and equipment."

"All responding units were staged approximately ¾ mile from the site on Route 275, at the El Paso Natural Gas Company compressor station. [6] At 0621, two El Paso Natural Gas Company employees manually finished closing pipeline valves." Firefighters believed that when they had put out the main fire and surrounding smaller brush fires, they would be going home. However, one of the El Paso Natural Gas Company employees who had been closing valves suddenly heard screams from the Pecos River and notified emergency responders that persons on the scene were injured.

The twelve campers were from the Heady, Smith and Sumler families, all from the Carlsbad area. They were related by marriage and shared grandchildren. They were camping in an area between the Pecos River and the explosion. When responders heard screams from the direction of the river, three firefighters under the command of Carlsbad Deputy Fire Chief Mike Shannon "ran toward the screams [in the Pecos River], carrying their medical gear several hundred yards across the rocky desert. Before they could get to the victims, the three men had to slide into, then climb out of, a dry arroyo with steep, 10-foot banks that ran beside the river, like an access road at a freeway. A thick, wall-like stand of salt cedar trees lined the river." The six survivors found by the firefighters were "hideously burned" and "looked like mummies."

"When paramedic David ‘Doc’ Looney of Otis reached the arroyo, Kelly Hicks, a Carlsbad Fire Department lieutenant, was already climbing out with 5-year-old Kirsten Sumler in his arms," write journalists Jeff Nesmith and Ralph Haurwitz. "Together, the two got the badly burned girl into an ambulance and set out for Carlsbad. Inside the ambulance, filled with the smell of burned flesh and hair, they worked to support the child during the desperate trip to Carlsbad. Both recalled that she was still conscious for much of the 30-mile trip, crying and talking to them of her pain…

"Back in the river were Kirsten’s mother, Amanda Sumler Smith, 25, and Amanda’s mother, Glenda Sumler, 47. Amanda, who died 10 days later at University Medical Center in Lubbock, told firefighters at the riverbank that she and Kirsten had been sleeping in a pickup when her husband, Terry, woke her and told her to run for the river. She said she was ‘already on fire’ when she jumped out of the truck with Kirsten. Terry, brother of Amy Smith Heady, may have stayed in an attempt to rescue his son, 3-year-old Dustin. Terry Smith’s body was found on the ground near the burned-out truck. Dustin's remains were in the cab."

"Also dead at the campsite was Don Sumler. He was Glenda Sumler’s husband, Amanda Sumler Smith’s father and Kirsten Sumler’s and Dustin Smith’s grandfather. Firefighters found the bodies of Tamber, Timber and Kelsey Heady with the residue of a playpen melted around them. Emergency room personnel at the Carlsbad hospital worked to stabilize Kirsten. Hicks and Looney then took her to the town's airport to be flown to the university hospital in Lubbock. From there, she would be sent to a burn center at Galveston. She died en route to Galveston."

Firefighters found evidence of "campfires and gasoline lanterns near the campers’ trucks, but it’s unlikely anyone will ever know the precise source of the blast’s ignition, experts say," note Nesmith and Haurwitz. "‘You've got pieces of metal flying around, so there could have been a metal collision of some kind, or a piece of the pipe could have hit one of their trucks. Just about anything could have started it,’ said Charles Batten, retired chief pipeline investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board." At 1017, the responding fire departments were able to return to service.

In sum, six members of the Heady, Smith and Sumler families, including Heady’s 6-month-old twins, Timber and Tamber, and the twins’ 22-month-old sister, Kelsey, died at the campsite. Six others (three women, two men and Kirsten Sumler) made it to the river and tried to swim away from the searing heat of the fire, getting downstream about 1000 feet. The causes of death of the twelve victims were thermal burns, carbon monoxide poisoning, and smoke inhalation.