Daly City residential gas line fire is out after causing evacuations, burning for 11 hours

ByLena Howland KGO logo

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Gas line fire at Daly City home forces evacuations, officials say

Fire officials tell ABC7 News they believe it may have been caused by an electrical valve blowing, which then sparked a gas leak.

DALY CITY, Calif. (KGO) -- A gas line fire in Daly City forced people to evacuate their homes overnight and into Tuesday morning.

The fire was at a home on Gellert Avenue, near the intersection of King Drive just blocks from Westborough Middle School.

Officials say the fire started around 11 p.m. Monday and was burning for hours into the morning in front of the home. As of 10 a.m., the fire is out after burning for 11 hours. Officials had said they were going to let it burn out.

MORE: 2 children injured after vehicle crashes into Oakland home and causes fire, authorities say

Fire officials on scene told ABC7 News they believe it may have been caused by an electrical valve blowing, which then sparked a gas leak.

Crews are working to cap the break on the residential gas line. They have dug around the area with a shovel.

Officials say the incident was serious enough to evacuate at least half a dozen neighbors in surrounding homes.

All other neighbors were asked to shelter in place.

"We're working side by side with PG&E," Battalion Chief Jeff Huntze said. "They're going to do a dig out to secure the gas, and we're just basically letting that gas burn out because we don't want to put that out because then we've got a bigger problem so we've evacuated several houses behind me and we're just going to hold our first alarm assignment to this incident."

Huntze added that further down the block a neighbor also reported the cover to their electrical box being blown out, although it's not clear if these two incidents were related.