Mysterious tanks found after deadly house blast
Barrels, cylinders and 50-gallon drums were removed Friday morning from the blackened pile of debris of the Sunset District house that exploded and burned to the ground a day earlier as officials from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive joined the investigation.
But fire officials said the cause of the blaze is still under investigation — and may be for months.
San Francisco medical examiners had not released the identity of the person killed in the fire by Friday afternoon.
The fire, which erupted after a booming explosion Thursday morning, drew about 100 firefighters and scores of onlookers to the 1700 block of 22nd Avenue, as flames engulfed the house, trapping and killing a person inside, and leveling the structure.
As they searched for the possible cause of the fire, investigators removed the cylinders and barrels — some of which contained unspecified liquids — said Capt. Jonathan Baxter, a fire department spokesman.
“They’re things that are unusual to find in a home,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily related to the cause of the fire.”
Baxter said investigators expect to finish their work at the home on Friday but said it would likely take “several weeks” before the cause is determined.
Speculation about the cause was rampant on social media and the streets of the Sunset on Friday, but Baxter said fire officials will conduct a systematic and thorough investigation to determine the cause.
The conflagration caused the house to collapse, and Baxter said items were strewn about the wreckage. Investigators are looking for items near the origin of the fire, he said.
“It could be anything — the barrels, a toaster oven, even a faulty electrical outlet,” he said.
Supervisor Joel Engardio, who represents the Sunset District, was in a Public Safety Committee meeting when he was alerted to the explosion and fire.
He rushed to the Sunset, where he found windows of nearby homes blown out and garage doors across the street ripped from their moorings. People told him they heard the blast at Ocean Beach, more than 20 blocks away.
“The blast itself, the magnitude of it, makes you wonder about the cause,” he said.
While he originally believed it might be a natural gas explosion, Engardio said he now believes it’s something else.
“Houses usually don’t just explode like that,” he said.