Group Of Homes Set Ablaze In Southwest Detroit After Explosion
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) -- Several homes in Southwest Detroit were destroyed by fire after one house exploded on Friday.
Mayor Mike Duggan's spokesman John Roach says investigators believe the explosion on Oakdale Street Friday afternoon followed a natural gas leak. He says witnesses saw a man with burning clothing running from the vacant house shortly before it exploded.
Five adjacent occupied homes caught fire. Most of the people who lived in the wood bungalow-style houses weren't home when the fires started. No injuries to residents were reported.
Detroit Fire Commissioner Edsel Jenkins said the department will continue to look into the incident.
"We have seven houses that were damaged, six of them substantially. Four were occupied, three were unoccupied," Jenkins said.
Lisa Blay lives nearby the homes and said that she heard the loud noise of the explosion.
"I heard a big boom when I was in the store," Blay said. "Then I walked down here when I was done eating and I heard that my friend's house caught on fire."
Arson investigators are expected to question a man who showed up at an area hospital with burns.
"There was a substantial explosion and when the house exploded, the fire just pushed its way (down)," Jenkins said. "Depending upon the structures, these houses were vacant, the wood was dry, so it was very easy for the fire to extend from its origin."
Investigators believe the man caused the explosion because he was trying to steal scrap metal.
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