4,000 flee Calif gas fire:

America

Manafort

A fire that ignited in an underground natural gas storage area in the San Francisco Bay Area prompted officials to evacuate thousands of residents, and Chevron emergency crews were working Thursday to purge gas from a pipeline to prevent an explosion.

Officials issued evacuation orders late Wednesday night for about 4,000 people from 1,400 homes near the pipeline in the city of Bay Point, California, after the fire started.

Chevron spokesman Cary Wages told reporters Thursday that workers spent the night purging natural gas from the pipeline and planned to inject nitrogen “which will extinguish the fire” burning in the underground vault. (AP)