Evidence from house explosion linked to hazmat situation at Daly City BART
DALY CITY – A truck carrying evidence from Thursday's deadly explosion and fire at a San Francisco home was the source of a hazardous material incident Friday morning which interrupted BART service on the Peninsula.
UPDATE: Arrest made in connection with deadly explosion at S.F. home
The incident began shortly before 9 a.m. on Junipero Serra Boulevard near the Daly City BART station. According to the North County Fire Authority, crews responded to a report of hazardous materials situation in the area involving a white box van transporting cylinders possibly containing propane or butane.
San Francisco police said that the van involved was carrying evidence to a secure location. The van was occupied by two SFPD officers and an evidence technician.
Police later confirmed to KPIX Friday afternoon that the vehicle was carrying evidence from the explosion and fire that destroyed a home and damaged many others on 22nd Avenue in the city's Sunset District on Thursday.
Firefighters said the van's driver smelled gas, stopped to investigate on southbound Junipero Serra Blvd. and called 911. Responding officers immediately cordoned off area, shutting down Junipero Serra from West Lake to John Daly Blvd., near the Daly City station.
A hazmat team also responded and deployed a robot to assess the situation. It was not clear what was inside the box truck or the circumstances that led to the hazmat situation.
Shortly after 10 a.m., BART posted on social media that train service had stopped at Daly City, Colma and the Balboa Park station in San Francisco due to police activity.
Several minutes later, BART said that service was suspended in the area at the request of police and firefighters due to an "emergency situation" outside the station in Daly City.
The hazmat incident caused disruption to BART service on all lines, along with San Francisco Muni lines that served the Daly City station.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m., the agency announced that Balboa Park had reopened, but the Daly City and Colma stations remained closed for more than two additional hours.
The agency announced shortly after 2 p.m. that both the Daly City and Colma stations had reopened.
Thursday's fire and explosion killed one person and injured two others, including a firefighter.
On Friday, neighbors whose homes sustained major damage from the blast, were still trying to figure out what to do next.
The firefighters were able to take me to the back of the house downstairs to grab the coats," said Karen Lei, sitting in a cold mist outside her heavily damaged home.
Lei lives in the house right next door to the explosion, and she and her family had a brief amount of time to collect personal items from her shattered home. She does not know when she'll be able to come back.
"I guess you need to say it, but it is red tagged," she said. "So for sure, the house is in bad shape and not livable anymore."
Up and down the street, neighbors were cleaning up glass, boarding up windows, trying to figure out what to do with doors that no longer work.
"Pretty much this entire piece from the lock," Cessario Greenblatt said of his broken door. "You can see it actually moves in here."
At the site of the blast, the investigation continues. Crews pushed deeper into the property as neighbors looked on - and talked amongst themselves about what might have happened here.
"So we we are hearing the rumors just like you are hearing the rumors," said Lt. Jonathan Baxter with the San Francisco Fire Department. "What's important for us is to look at the facts. Everybody saw the tanks coming out of the house. This is definitely something that's unusual to see come out of an actual residential structure fire, or any fire in any location. But it doesn't necessarily mean that these are components to the cause of this fire. They are components of this incident. Which is why our investigators are taking those and looking at those to determine if they contributed to the fire incident here at 1734 22nd Ave.."
Several agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are investigating.
Wilson Walker contributed to this report.
