A massive fire burned homes as it roared through a mostly residential neighborhood in the hills south of San Francisco following a loud explosion Thursday evening that shot a fireball more than 1,000 feet into the air and sent frightened residents fleeing for safety, witnesses said.
The fire is burning in the town of San Bruno a few miles from San Francisco International Airport, prompting speculation it was sparked by a plane crash. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the agency has no record of a crash. Spokesmen for local airports also said they knew of no missing planes.
Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility company that serves the San Francisco Bay area, is looking into the possibility of a natural gas explosion but had no additional information, said spokesman J.D. Guidi.
Live footage on KPIX-TV showed at least a dozen homes destroyed, with flames reaching as high as 60 feet in the air as the fire fueled itself on the burning homes. Planes and helicopters flew over the neighborhood dumping water in an effort to stanch the flames.
A person who answered the phone at Seton Medical Center in nearby Daly City but did not want to give her name said the hospital was on a triage alert because of people being brought to the hospital with injuries caused by the fire. She could provide no details about the number of injured people.
Witnesses say a loud explosion was felt just before the flames erupted around 6 p.m.
Jane Porcelli, 62, said she lives on a hill above where the fire is centered. She said she thought she heard a plane overhead with a struggling engine.
"And then you heard this bang. And everything shook except the floor, so we knew it wasn't an earthquake," Porcelli said.
"I feel helpless that I can't do anything. I just gotta sit by and watch."
At 6:14 p.m., Stephanie Mullen, Associated Press news editor for photos based in San Francisco, was attending children's soccer practice with her two children and husband at Cresmoor High School when she saw the blast.
"First, it was a low deep roar and everybody looked up, and we all knew something big was happening," she said. "Then there was a huge explosion with a ball of fire that went up behind the high school several thousand feet into the sky.
"Everybody grabbed their children and ran and put their children in their cars," Mullen said. "It was very clear something awful had happened."
Several minutes later, Mullen was near the fire scene, about a half-mile away in a middle-class neighborhood of 1960s vintage homes in hills overlooking San Francisco, the bay and the airport. She said she could feel the heat of the fire on her face although she was three or four blocks away from the blaze. It appeared the fireball was big enough to have engulfed at least several homes.
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UPDATE:
(09-09) 20:20 PDT SAN BRUNO -- A huge explosion from a gas line rocked San Bruno shortly after 6 p.m. today, authorities said, sending up a fireball that could be seen for miles, critically burning residents and igniting a blaze that gobbled up at least a dozen houses in a residential neighborhood.
Several structures and thick stands of trees in the neighborhood near Skyline Boulevard and Sneath Lane, west of Interstate 280, are still engulfed in a blaze that appears to be being fed by a continuous source of fuel. The blaze jumped from structure to structure unabated as emergency crews rushed in, residents cleared out in all directions and ambulance sirens filled the air.
One man and one woman, both in critical condition with burns, have been taken to San Francisco General Hospital, said Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for S.F. General. A nursing supervisor at St. Francis Memorial Hospital said two people have been brought in with injuries from the fire.
One spokeswoman at Seton Medical Center in Daly City said she was too busy handling the situation to speak to the press, and a spokeswoman for the San Mateo County coroner said she could not comment on whether the agency has been called to the scene.
A South San Francisco police officer called to the disaster scene said the blast had been caused by a gas line. The San Bruno fire chief told Channel 5 television he believes the fire was caused by a "high pressure gas line."
A Pacific Gas and Electric Co. spokesman said he cannot confirm that the fire is being fed by one of the utility's gas lines. Its workers are investigating the situation.
"We've heard all the reports and are currently looking into the situation," said PG&E spokesman J.D. Guidi. "We've received multiple reports. We've heard about fires. We've heard about damage to homes."
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