VIDEO: Man dining at Hong Kong Lounge II describes terrifying moments after explosion, fire in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A man who was inside the popular Hong Kong Lounge II restaurant in San Francisco on Wednesday the moment a gas explosion sparked a 3-alarm fire spoke with ABC7 and described, moment-by-moment, what he saw.

VIDEO: Audio captures terror after SF gas explosion

"We heard a rushing noise, like a tornado, it must have been the gas line leak. That lasted for about 15 seconds and we were all just looking at each other and didn't know what to do, didn't really react. You know, I was facing the window and all of a sudden it was just... the whole window was lit up bright orange and I think everybody in there was glad that there was no explosion to cause the window to break cause that would have been much worse for all of us. Immediately there were flames against the windows. We felt the heat immediately, it was probably five or 10 degrees warmer within a minute. And there was no smoke because the fire was outside, but we knew we needed to get out before the windows gave away. We all ran to the back of the restaurant and then the management was able to basically get us all out the back throughout the kitchen so we escaped out the kitchen after a minute and went out onto the street."

Take a look at full coverage on the gas explosion and fire on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco.