Firefighters inspect remnants of Long Beach back house after explosion

Firefighters rushed to a Long Beach neighborhood on Monday after an explosion destroyed a back house and severely injured a man.

It happened around 11 a.m. at a property in the 2800 block of Gale Avenue, according to the Long Beach fire and police departments. The explosion completely destroyed the accessory dwelling unit, also known as a back house or granny flat. The adjacent main house sustained significant damage to its exterior walls—debris from the explosion was scattered among the property and onto neighboring properties.  

Firefighters remained at the scene to inspect the destroyed building. An ambulance took one man to the hospital with severe burns.

On Tuesday, family members identified the victim as 52-year-old Manny Fabrigas. As of Tuesday, he remained in the ICU with serious burns on his arms and legs. 

"Our dad is the most hardworking person we know," said a statement from the Fabrigas family. "Since we were kids and 'til this day, our dad has worked day and night to do his best to provide for his family."

Inspectors red-tagged the back house and yellow-tagged the main building. The American Red Cross is helping two adults and a child affected by the explosion.

The blast caused roughly 2,000 residents to lose power. However, crews fixed most outages within a couple of hours of the explosion. 

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the explosion inside the accessory dwelling unit, and on Tuesday said that it was possibly caused by leaking natural gas. 

"Theres no indication that there's any criminal malice or anything associated with that as it relates to this incident," said LBFD Captain Jake Heflin. "We're just lucky that no one was killed."

One resident who lives nearby said that she had been smelling gas in the area since Saturday.