Sacramento: 4 Firefighters injured in house explosion

GAS EXPLOSION INJURES 4 FIREFIGHTERS IN SACRAMENTOCALIFORNIA

0947 hours SCFD received a call from a neighbor about a possible gas leak at a vacant dwelling.

0951 hours a chief officer and a engine company arrive.

0954 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was called to investigate.

0956 House exploded into a ball of fire splintering the roof upward beyond the trees.

From The Sacramento Bee'

Explosion rocks Oak Park neighborhood this morning, four firefighters injured

By Bobby Caina Calvan and Ryan Lillis
bcalvan@sacbee.com

A fiery explosion rocked Oak Park this morning, sending four firefighters to the hospital and jolting nerves and houses throughout the neighborhood.
The four firefighters were in fair condition at UC Davis Medical Center with burns to their faces and extremities, said acting Sacramento fire chief Lloyd Ogan. One was released from the hospital today.
Rescue workers do not think anyone else was in the house when it exploded, but a search dog was on scene to double check, Ogan said.
The explosion occurred in a vacant home on the 3800 block of 25th Avenue near Martin Luther King Boulevard.
Fire officials were called to the neighborhood at 9:47 a.m. when dispatch received a call from a neighbor about a possible gas leak. Officials also received reports of someone possibly inside the home.
Firefighters turned off the gas and electricity to the house. When they forced their way through the home's front door at 9:56 a.m., it exploded, Ogan said.
What caused the blast isn't yet clear. Fire investigators and a crew from Pacific Gas & Electric this afternoon picked at the debris to determine the cause of the explosion.
A PG&E spokesman said he knew of no prior reports of trouble at the Oak Park house, which has been vacant for months and was up for rent. Neighbors reported smelling fumes emanating from the property on the Fourth of July, but some dismissed the odors as the lingering whiff from holiday fireworks. The company's first word of a possible gas leak was a call from the fire department Monday morning, just minutes before the explosion, said PG&E spokesman J.D. Guidi.
Ogan said the fireball's "ignition source should have been eliminated" when the gas and electric were shut off. "Who knows what sparked it?" he said, adding it was unlikely the firefighters forcing their way through the front door would be the sole source of the blaze.
The explosion buckled the house's roof and blew out a side wall.
John Jelks, a neighbor, was standing at his mailbox when the fire crews arrived. "I saw pieces of wood fly as high up as the trees," he said.
That's when he bolted away from the explosion.
Some neighbors reported the smell of natural gas overnight.
Many dismissed it as fumes from holiday fireworks, neighbors said.
Dave Peterson, another neighbor, said "It was a big old gas ball coming out of the window."
When the house exploded, Brittany Acosta, who lives down the street, said she thought it was fireworks, but that it was too loud.
Aurora Alvarado, who lives in the 5100 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard, said she didn't know what hit her neighborhood. "Even the house shook," she said.

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2010/07/explosion-rocks.html#ixzz0ssjfXXcH