Because of the very high danger factor involved with this fire, cylanders of acetelyne gas were exploding and sending projectiles as far as 1/4 mile away, it was almost impossible to get close enough for any good photos. Most parking Garages that would have had a good view of the fire were closed by the Dallas Police Dept to access and all streets within a 1/2 mile radius were shut down even though later in the day I was able to walk to within about 1/4 of a mile of the fire on a closed road. The fire started as an industrial accident at around 9:15 am when some cylanders were being filled and a pigtail failed which lead to the massive fire which shot fireballs as high as 200 ft and sent debri flying over 500 ft in the air and up to 1/4 mile away with large pieces being blown across 2 nearby Interstate Highways which were soon closed for over 11 hours. I arrived and shot some distance shots at around 12:30, fire fighters were just about to enter the firezone at this time (local news helicopter shots were doing live feeds from above the site) and then at almost 1:30 you could see the smoke change color which indicated that the firefighters were getting water onto the blaze. This industrial gas supplier had close to 1000 filled canisters in their work yard which made it very dangerous to enter since many of them had safety valves that had opened which started venting the flammable gasses which ignited, the valves opened because of the extreme heat that was enveloping the canisters. Luckily there were just three injuries that required hospitalization and no deaths from this accident.

From Wikipedia
Uses
Approximately 80 percent of the acetylene produced annually in the United States is used in chemical synthesis. The remaining 20 percent is used primarily for oxyacetylene gas welding and cutting due to the high temperature of the flame; combustion of acetylene with oxygen produces a flame of over 3300 ¡ãC (6000 ¡ãF), releasing 11.8 kJ/g. Oxyacetylene is the hottest burning fuel gas. (Only solid fuels can produce a higher temperature chemical flame.)[1]

Compression
Due to the carbon-to-carbon triple bond, acetylene gas is fundamentally unstable, and will decompose in an exothermic reaction if compressed to any great extent. Acetylene can explode with extreme violence if the pressure of the gas exceeds about 100 kPa (¡Ö14.5 psi) as a gas or when in liquid or solid form, so it is shipped and stored dissolved in acetone or dimethylformamide (DMF), contained in a metal cylinder with porous filling (Agamassan), which renders it safe to transport and use.
Above 400 ¡ãC(673 K) (which is quite low for a hydrocarbon), the pyrolysis of acetylene will start. The main products are the dimer vinylacetylene (C4H4) and benzene. At temperatures above 900 ¡ãC(1173 K), the main product will be soot. So since the fire was so hot it produced a great amount of soot and the stabalyzer that is in the tanks was also ejected in large amounts.