MORELAND, Ky. — A natural gas pipeline exploded in Central Kentucky early Thursday morning, unleashing a giant ball of "sheer heat" that killed a woman and sent her neighbors fleeing in panic.

"I could feel it as we were running from the house," said Jodie Coulter, who suffered burns and was one of five people injured. "I could feel it, like if you had your hand in an oven."

The flames that destroyed her Lincoln County home reached 300 feet high, as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

Authorities are uncertain what caused the massive blast on the 30-inch pipeline that was transporting pressurized natural gas to the Gulf Coast. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

The explosion and fire destroyed five homes and damaged four others in the Indian Camp mobile home park and melted tar on nearby U.S. 127, emergency officials said.

The flames could be seen throughout Lincoln County and the smoke as far away as Louisville, 70 miles northwest.

Kentucky gas explosion:Lincoln County deputy rescues an elderly couple at site

Kentucky State Police Trooper Robert Purdy, a spokesman for the agency, said the blast may have melted part of a nearby railroad track.

“The fire was so hot that even the asphalt road that circled the area looks more like a gravel driveway,” he said.

Don Gilliam, director of Lincoln County Emergency Management, said there appeared to be two explosions.

The flash of heat from the second explosion killed Lisa Denise Derringer, 58, one of Coulter’s neighbors in the mobile home park. She died of “thermal exposure,” the Lincoln County Coroner’s Office said.

Purdy said Derringer lived in "one of the closer residences" to the blast and may have been outside her home. "The investigation kind of looks like she may have seen it, heard what was going on" and tried to leave.

Emergency managers said the rupture involved the Texas Eastern Transmission pipeline, owned and operated by Enbridge, a major transporter of oil and natural gas.

The pipeline encompasses more than 9,000 miles and stretches from the Mexican border in Texas to New York City.

The company had an explosion along the same pipeline in January, when two people were injured in Noble County, Ohio, roughly 300 miles northeast of the Lincoln County blast site.

Enbridge spokesman Jim McGuffey said at a noon press conference that the pipeline that ruptured was one of three such pipelines in the area.

Because the line crosses several states, its inspections fall to the federal government. The NTSB said it was sending three investigators.

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The Kentucky Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in the state, sent officials to Lincoln County to “preserve the integrity of the scene” for federal investigators, commission spokesman Andrew Melnykovych said.

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet also sent officials to the scene and found no environmental impact Thursday, although a further inspection will be conducted Friday, spokesman John Mura said.

At a campaign-related event Thursday, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin called the explosion a "truly heartbreaking" tragedy.

"These things happen," he said. "It's a dangerous industry. It's a dangerous business. I'm truly grateful for the people that were as involved as they were out of the gate to ensure that it wasn't a bigger problem. It is heartbreaking."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mentioned the incident on the Senate floor, saying that the smoke could be seen from Louisville. "Our gratitude is with all the first responders who rushed toward towering flames to protect their neighbors and communities."

Representatives from Lincoln County Emergency Service, Red Cross and Enbridge spoke with victims Thursday evening at the New Hope Baptist Church, where aid was being offered.

Gilliam said residents were able to return to their residences, so long as they explained to law enforcement what they are doing in the area. He said they likely would not have electricity or running water.

Jimmy Hazlett, a pastor at New Hope Baptist Church, said earlier that groups, including local churches, hotels and a team from Walmart, had dropped off food and water for people affected by the blast.

“The community has overwhelmingly responded,” he said. “So we’re not here by ourselves.”

Gov. Matt Bevin:Lincoln County pipeline explosion a 'tragedy ... these things happen.'

Purdy said at the earlier press conference that a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy likely saved an elderly couple.

He said the area was so hot the deputy could feel the heat through his windshield and "there was fire everywhere."

The deputy saw an elderly man walking with a cane and a flashlight. "He got out of the vehicle, loaded that individual up and he said, ‘You need to find my wife,’" Purdy said.

All three were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Purdy said.

Don Coulter, 84, Jodie Coulter’s father-in-law, said he "thought the world was coming to an end" when the blast happened.

"It was terrible," he said at a Red Cross relief center set up at the New Hope Baptist Church in Stanford. "The clocks were falling off the walls, the trailer was shaking like crazy. I went to the door and I see this big ball of fire, and it was noisy. I open the door and the door's so hot, I couldn't hold it. I couldn't get in the car because it was so hot, so we run across the road."

Jodie Coulter, who had come to the church after being treated at the hospital for burns on her arms and back, said she remembers “sheer heat.”

She said she woke up to her house shaking and immediately looked out her window and saw a light. Several days before, she said the gas company put up a flag in the exact spot where the light was.

"I jumped across the bed because I knew it was the gas line," Coulter said.

She and her husband, Denver, made it out with their dog, but lost everything else.

“Sometimes it just catches you,” she said of the fire. “I feel like I’m still running from it.”

Read more:Pipeline that exploded has had more than 2 dozen 'significant incidents'

Courier Journal reporter Ben Tobin and photographer Michael Clevenger and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Enbridge spokesman Jim McGuffey and mischaracterized the physical state of the natural gas being transported in the pipeline.