"We Thought a 747 Had Landed On Us"

When you fly out of San Francisco Airport headed back towards L.A. you take off right over the San Bruno area.  Last year I flew out of San Francisco and our path took us right over the neighborhood that was involved in last night's fire.  This shot came from some video I was shooting as we climbed out of SFO.  The neighborhood that exploded last night is shown in this shot (I did a little research on Google Maps to confirm):

When that neighborhood exploded in flames last night many thought it was a plane crash, but the accident that has apparently taken the lives of  6 people, destroyed 53 homes and damaged over 100 others was the rupture of a 24" natural gas line:

The explosion and massive fire that ripped through San Bruno left six dead, the fire chief said Friday morning, and he expected the toll to rise as more homes are searched.

San Bruno Fire Captain Charlie Barringer stood on Glenview Drive a block above Claremont Drive about 2 a.m. and surveyed the damage as firefighters pointed their hoses at the smoldering remains of a half dozen homes.

The power was still out. Spot fires were still burning in yards near the charred remains of station wagons, the air thick and acrid. Many houses remained eerily untouched, SUVs still parked in the driveways, solar-powered garden lights burning, newspapers wrapped in plastic still lying where they were tossed on the grass Thursday morning.

Barringer has been based at the local station for the past three years, one of three firefighters on Engine 52, the first to respond to the explosion.

“I thought a 747 had landed on us,” he said. “It shook our station right to its foundation.”

Within a minute, he had sounded a four-alarm fire, he said. Soon after, he said firefighters discovered a gas line had exploded, destroying not only homes but the grid of water mains that supplied the local fire hydrants. His crew had no water to fight the fires.

“We were overwhelmed. We had multiple neighborhoods on fire,” he said.

I spent several hours last night watching the unbelievable video coming from a news helicopter hovering over the area and listening to the fire department as they coordinated the 6 alarm response. I'm amazed the death toll is as low as it is given the violence of the initial explosion and how quickly so many homes were aflame.

That neighborhood will have a big black hole in it for a long time to come.