One month after the explosion and fire at Vashon Energy, the two employees who were injured are recovering, business has resumed and an investigation by Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries is underway.

Longtime employee Nancy Weed, who said she was back at work the day after the incident, is still healing from the Dec. 2 fire, which left her with a badly bruised wrist and a recurring cough and hoarseness. She said her recovery has been slow, but she has not taken any time off.

“There is no time to rest when you have got customers running out of fuel. You have got to stay on top of it,” she said.

Owen Dailey, who sustained second- and third-degree burns in the fire, spent nine days at Harborview Medical Center and underwent skin graft surgery for the burns on his arm.

“I’m really good,” he said last week from California, where he had flown for a quick trip to see family concerned about him. “I’m not in a lot of pain.”

Dailey, who lives in Puyallup with his wife Michal Dailey and their two children, ages 6 and 8, said the doctors were surprised at how quickly he recovered physically, but would have preferred to keep him in the hospital longer. They released him so quickly, he said, because his mother flew in to help with wound care.

His recovery is far from over, however. The skin on his head is still blistering, he said, and he wears a protective covering on his calf and hand. Michal Dailey said he is expected to need medical care for three years.

In three months, he will be able to work again, his doctors told him, and within three years, he said he should not have substantial scarring.

“That is amazing,” he added.

He also recounted a small-world experience stemming from the incident. The anesthesiologist who cared for him during his skin graft surgery was actually on the scene almost immediately after the explosion. Dailey recalled him being there that day.

“He gave me water at the site,” he said.

Dailey, who was trying to repair a hose nozzle at the time of the explosion, moved two propane trucks nearby after he was burned. He recalled what he was thinking at the time.

“I do not want everyone to get blown up. I know what propane can do,” he said. “So I got up and moved the trucks.”

Many islanders expressed concern about Owen Dailey after the fire and also contributed to an online fund-raising account. Choking up, he expressed gratitude for their actions.

“Thank you for all the respect and praying. It feels really good,” he said. “It’s really good — amazing.”

His wife also expressed her thanks.

“It really overwhelms me the amount of support you (islanders) have shown our family through all of this. Thank you,” she said.

Michal Dailey, who works as a 911 dispatcher in Tacoma and is accustomed to dealing with emergencies at work, said she has not fully processed this situation yet, but said the hardest part initially was its effects on their young children.

The first day Owen was in the hospital, she said, a nurse told her that the general rule is that burn patients are hospitalized one day for every percent of their body burned. He suffered burns on 20 to 25 percent of his body, so his hospital stay was projected to be much longer than it was — through Christmas. But she noted that not all injuries are visible to the eye.

“Physically he is definitely healing much, much quicker, but mentally is where he is struggling,” she said.

He becomes very emotional when he thinks about the fire and other potential outcomes that might have occurred, she added.

Michal noted that the fire happend just two days after a police office was killed in the line of duty in Tacoma. Given her work, that was a major loss, and she said she reminds herself that Owen is still present.

“Right now, we still have him. We are just focused on getting him better,” she said. “It is surreal, and I know we have a long road ahead of us.”

Within days of the incident, King County fire investigators had determined the fire was caused by a propane vapor explosion and had deemed it accidental. Their report is expected to be released this month.

The week following the explosion the state’s Department of Labor &Industries (L&I) also opened an investigation, which will likely take several months to complete. Elaine Fisher, of L&I’s Public Affairs division, said that if a worker is injured enough in a workplace accident to be hospitalized, the company must report it. The agency then reviews all hospitalization reports to see which incidents should be investigated.

“We look for cases where it appears there might have been safety violations or where the employees were in extreme danger. Not all injury incidents are investigated,” she said. “In the case of an explosion, that rises to the level of extreme danger.”

While fire investigators focus on public safety, she said L&I investigators focus on workplace safety regulations and what the employer was doing to ensure those regulations were followed.

“When you are working with flammable explosives, there are a lot of safety regulations in place,” she added.

Meanwhile, Vashon Energy has continued to serve its island customers and will soon open a temporary office space in the Sheffield Building. Weed, who has worked with the company since 2007, will staff it, while her recovery continues.

Additionally, the company has requested that through the end of January, customers monitor their tanks and let the company know when they are down to 30 percent. Jim Ellifritt, the area director for Amerigas, which owns Vashon Energy, said if people need verbal assistance with how to do this, they can call the office. Otherwise, they can flip open a lid on the tank and read the gauge under it. He added that a new system is being developed to track customers’ needs, so they will not have to continue monitoring their tanks for long. He added the company is continuing to meet its customers’ propane needs and is sending trucks to the island four or five days a week to do so.