Blaze on Brunot reignites interest in historic Pittsburgh island

It’s certainly no Herr’s, much less a Neville.

But Brunot Island — small, scrappy and often overlooked locally compared to its better-known cousins — is no slouch when it comes to its place in Pittsburgh history.

Nestled snugly in the Ohio River just a few miles from The Point and upstream from the McKees Rocks Bridge, the 129-acre island flared to prominence Monday night when a major electrical fire broke out in a piece of Duquesne Light equipment.

While no one was hurt, the blaze lit up social media as it spewed black smoke, shut down a commercial railroad line running over the island and drew a contingent of firefighters, who used a ferry to transport personnel and equipment across the water.

In time, the fire will likely prove to be no more than a blip on Pittsburgh’s historical radar — a water-cooler-conversation event that for a brief moment gave the island 15 minutes of latter-day fame.

Cast back more than two centuries, though, and the island looms large in the annals of American exploration. In 1803, it marked perhaps the first stop along a grand odyssey and played host to a visitor far more illustrious than any Pittsburgh firefighter: explorer Meriwether Lewis, who had not yet rendezvoused with his traveling companion, William Clark.

Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, the duo set out westward to find the Northwest Passage — a fabled water route to the Pacific Ocean.

They had to start somewhere, though. And what better place than Pittsburgh?

Lewis arrived in mid-July 1803 to pick up his boat for the voyage, said historian James Holmberg, curator of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Ky. But he had to wait a while.

“According to him, the boat builder was short of supplies, there were delays, and the boat builder was a drunk,” Holmberg said Tuesday.

It wasn’t until the end of August that year that Lewis got underway down the Ohio with his barge and a small flotilla.

Before Lewis got more than a league, he paid a visit to an island that had been settled by a French physician named Felix Brunot, who arrived during the Revolutionary War. The good doctor built a family home there, according to the Historic Pittsburgh website.

A journal entry by Lewis dated Aug. 30, 1803 (though some believe it was misdated and actually referred to events of Aug. 31) and digitized by the University of Nebraska Press indicates the small expedition set out at 11 a.m., arriving at “Bruno’s Island” for a short spell.

Brunot, according to a footnote on the University of Nebraska’s online journal entry, was reportedly a friend of Lewis, “which would explain why he stopped at the island in spite of his hurry.”

Lewis had a newfangled device with him called an airgun. He recounted that after going ashore, he was invited “by some of the gentlemen present” to demonstrate it. And demonstrate it he did.

He pumped it full of air and fired it seven times “with pretty good success.”

But then a man named Blaze Cenas — identified as a relative by marriage of Brunot — discharged it accidentally.

A near tragedy occurred. The airgun’s ammunition passed through the hat of a woman 40 yards away, grazing her temple.

Blood gushed, according to the journal entry, but the woman “revived to our enespressable [sic] satisfaction.”

And that, Holmberg said, marked a pivotal historic moment.

While some might consider Brunot Island to be a bit player in the fabric of Pittsburgh and the early days of the celebrated expedition, had the woman died, things might have turned out differently.

“The expedition could have ended before it really started,” Holmberg said. “If she’d been killed, there might have been all kinds of problems. I’m not sure if Lewis, having been involved in an incident like that, could have just said, ‘Oops’ and gone on down the river and left.”

But the woman survived and the expedition shoved off on its 8,000-mile round-trip journey, proceeding to “a ripple of McKee’s rock.”

With that, Holmberg said, the doors to the American west were flung open — with far-reaching repercussions.

“It had resounding effects throughout American science and history and disrupted the lives of countless Native Americans throughout North America,” according to the National Park Service.

Over time, Brunot’s Island transformed from pastoral residence to farmland to a race track to a utility installation.

Today, Duquesne Light runs electric transmission facilities from a substation on the island to another substation in Crescent.

Monday’s incident

Sometime after 8 p.m. Monday, explosions were heard on the island. Firefighters arrived to find a large fire due to what was described as a catastrophic failure in a specialized transformer called a shunt reactor.

The utility described it as a “container of oil and coils of copper used to manage electric voltage.”

No one was injured. But the scene crackled with a potential for deadly results as 340,000 volts of electricity surged amid down wires. Among the worries: that electricity could shoot through a stream of water, using a fire hose as a conduit.

Due to the charged environment, Pittsburgh firefighters and Duquesne Light personnel took care to ground what they could and dissipate the electricity before turning their attention to the blaze.

Mineral oil used as a coolant in the transformer was on fire, said Brian Kokkila, a Pittsburgh assistant fire chief and the incident commander.

Emergency responders employed a contingency plan designed long ago, using a ferry to move crews, a foam truck and a pumper to the island.

Kokkila stayed until the very end, not leaving until around 2:30 a.m., after his people were safely off the island and there was no chance of the fire reigniting.

He said the experience was one of “interesting logistics.”

“It was a slower process,” Kokkila said, “but slow is smooth, and slow is safe.”

Now, he said, Duquesne Light and the state’s Public Utility Commission will be responsible for pinpointing the cause of the fire.

Meanwhile, Brunot Island likely will fall back into relative obscurity.

Theresa Kail-Smith, president of Pittsburgh City Council, said the island recently came under her purview during redistricting.

She’s never set foot on it. But she said the person who helped her office with the redistricting was intrigued by the possibilities: perhaps a bird sanctuary, he told her, or a stop for a tour boat operator.

Kail-Smith shared an observation made by her husband. There was no fire on Brunot Island until it moved into her district.