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UPDATE: This morning Los Angeles Times is reporting that San Bruno’s fire chief says at least 6 four people were killed by the blast yesterday evening and that the number of dead is expected to rise as more home are searched. At last word 53 homes were destroyed and 120 damaged. The fire covered at least 10 acres.
Excerpts from San Francisco Chronicle report at 10:03 PM PDT:
With a thunderous roar heard for miles, a natural gas line explosion ripped through a San Bruno neighborhood shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, sending up a geyser of fire, critically burning residents and igniting a blaze that gobbled up more than a dozen houses.
The wind-whipped blaze jumped from structure to structure in the area near Skyline Boulevard and Sneath Lane, west of Interstate 280, raging unabated for almost an hour as emergency crews rushed in, residents cleared out, and ambulance sirens filled the air.
The central ball of fire, fed by the gas line, raged past nightfall before abating. By then, about 20 houses and thick stands of trees were engulfed in flames. Power was cut off to the area, and the only light came from emergency vehicles and the smoldering houses.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. spokesman Jeff Smith said one of the utility’s natural gas transmission lines ruptured. The reason for the rupture is unknown, he said.
Fifteen people were being treated at Kaiser Medical Center in South San Francisco for burns, smoke inhalation and other injuries, spokeswoman Stacey Wagner said. Some critically burned patients had been transferred earlier to California Pacific Medical Center’s St. Luke’s campus in San Francisco, she said.
Five injured people were taken to San Francisco General Hospital. Spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said three were in critical condition – a man in his 50s and a woman in her 80s, both suffering from burn injuries, and a woman in her 80s being treated for smoke inhalation.
A woman in her 60s was in serious condition with smoke inhalation, and the fifth victim was in good condition, Kagan said.
Also on STATter911 …
- UPDATE – Audio from Philadelphia house fire with rescues. Three firefighters & four civilians hurt. Lt. critical but stable. – February 5, 2012
- Caught on video: Woman rescued from Citrus Heights, CA apartment fire. – March 8, 2013
- Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker suffers smoke inhalation & burn helping rescue neighbor from house fire. Tweets about experience. – April 13, 2012
- Video & pictures: Four rescued by ladder from Silver Spring, MD high-rise fire. Eight injured with one critical. – April 2, 2013
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I’m out of position, in Colorado Springs, Co., for the IAFF Fallen Firefighter Memorial Services tomorrow.
My thoughts are with all of my co-workers and those from allied fire agencies.
The fire location is South of San Francisco, and the San Bruno FD is a One Station FD. Fortunately, all of the communities in San Mateo County (from Daly City to Santa Clara County, ie., San Jose, Ca.) “dropped” their boarders many years ago and respond on an “Auto Matic Aid Dispatch” so the first alarm and subsequent Resource Orders were already preplanned.
It is classified as an “I-Zone” fire same as Boulder Colorado’s.
Once again, as with the Boulder, Co. and Detroit, Michigan, when the fire started it became a “Wind Driven Event” with winds primarily blowing from the Ocean (Westerly) inland.
Todays “Denver Post Post” Newspaper listed wind guests of up to “64 Miles per Hour” which on the Beaufort Wind Scale is classified as a “Violent Storm” at “64-72-MPH, in the Boulder, Co. region.
Looking at the weather charts, you can see a confluence of the winds blowing across the country from the West Coast, and Upwards from the Gulf of Mexico, that has in part influenced
parts of all three fires.
Detroit… Baltimore… San Bruno. I guess everything does happen in threes.