This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Two men burned in a western Wyoming natural gas storage site fire that killed one of their coworkers remained in serious-to-critical condition Thursday in a Utah hospital.
Kathy Wilets, a spokeswoman for Salt Lake City's University Hospital Burn Unit, confirmed that the two men were still being treated at the facility on Thursday. However, she was not authorized by the men's families to release any specifics on their conditions.
On Wednesday, hospital officials confirmed that Jared Loftiss, 35, had died of extensive burns.
The workers were cleaning a storage tank Tuesday afternoon at the EOG Resources site, just south of La Barge, when one of them reportedly opened a door to the structure and the fire erupted. It was extinguished by nightfall.
The cause of the fire was under investigation, but EOG Resources officials characterized it as a "flash fire" apparently ignited during the cleaning operation.
Three of the workers, including Loftiss, were flown to the University Hospital Burn Unit; a fourth was treated at a local out-patient clinic and released.
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