A huge explosion sent flames roaring through a neighborhood in the hills south of San Francisco Thursday, destroying more than 50 homes and killed at least one person was killed.
Electric company serving the San Francisco Bay area said one gas line rupture in the vicinity of explosions, which left a giant crater and sent flames ripping down the block a few suburbs in San Bruno after 6:00
"If in the end decided that we were responsible for the cause of the incident, we will take accountability," said Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in a statement e-mail.
The fire was hot enough to break the windshield of the car fire burned 53 homes and 120 damaged as crews continue battling the flames into the night. At least one person was confirmed killed in the explosion, the San Bruno Fire Chief Dennis Haag said.
The fire had spread to 10 acres and 50 percent contained Thursday night, said Jay Allen, a spokesman for the California Emergency Management Agency.
Between 150 firefighters and 200 people at the scene, said Haag. More than 100 people sheltering in evacuation centers in nearby, but no estimate of the number of people missing was available, he said.
Witnesses said the explosion a fireball shooting terrified the population of more than 1000 feet in the air and sent fleeing for safety and rushed to get goods out of the house on fire.
San Bruno Fire Captain Charlie Barringer said the neighborhood was swallowed by the firefighters arrived, although the fire station just a few blocks away. He said the blast took out the entire water system, forcing firefighters to pump water from more than two miles away.
Haag said firefighters initially difficult to get close enough to rupture gas line to shut it down because of fire.
Connie Bushman returned home to find his block on fire. He said he ran to his house looking for his father 80 years but can not find it. A fireman said he had gone, but he could not trace it.
"I do not know where my father, I do not know where my husband, I do not know where to go," says Bushman.
Victim suffered serious burns began to arrive in San Francisco Bay area hospital shortly after the explosion. Estimated number of injured was not immediately available. Hospitals reported receiving about 20 patients were injured - some of them in critical condition - and they get more anticipated.
Jane Porcelli, 62, said he lived on a hill above where the fire was centered. He said he thought he heard a plane overhead with the engine struggling.
"And then you hear the explosion this And everything except shake the floor., So we knew it was not an earthquake," said Porcelli. "I feel helpless that I can not do anything about it I just have to watch .."
Stephanie Mullen, the Associated Press news editor for pictures, based in San Francisco, attending soccer practice kids with her two children and husband at the Crestmoor High School when he saw the explosion at 6:14 pm
"First, it is a low rumble in and everyone looked up, and we all know something big is happening," he said. "Then there was a big explosion with a fireball that runs behind the school several thousand feet into the sky.
"Everybody took their children and run and put their children in their cars," said Mullen. "It is clear that something bad had happened."
A few minutes later, Mullen was near the location of fire, about half a mile away at-home middle-class neighborhood in the 1960s era in the hills overlooking the San Francisco bay and the airport. She said she could feel the heat of the fire in his face even though he was three or four blocks from the blaze. Apparently the fireball was big enough to have swallowed at least a few homes.
"I can see the family in the backyard of a house next to the fire, bundling their children and try to get them out of the backyard," he said.
He said the people in the neighborhood yell, "This is terrible" and "My family there."
Judy and Frank Serrsseque walked down the hill away from the fire with the emergency cart carrying important documents, medication and three cats.
Judy Serrsseque said he heard an explosion, saw a fire that prompted headed to their house and know they must go. As they fled, they said they saw people burning and people struggling to get their goods out of the houses on fire.
"We've got everything together, and we had just come out," Judy Serrsseque. "Most of us wonder whether we have a home to go back."
San Bruno Fire: At Least One Dead, Dozens Of Homes Destroyed
