
Dan Reichart, an astronomy professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was taking an afternoon break from his work on the campus’s Morehead Planetarium to grab some ice cream. As he was making his way across McCorkle Place, around 3 p.m. on Thursday, he saw a fire working its way up the Davie Poplar, a historic tree on the campus.
For an experienced Eagle Scout like him, as the professor later told The Chronicle by email, the seemingly small fire was something he thought he could handle. What he didn’t expect was an explosion that threw him back more than 20 feet, as caught on video by a student.
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