San Francisco • A gas explosion in a San Francisco neighborhood shot flames into the air Wednesday and was burning five buildings as utility crews scrambled to shut off the flow of gas more than two hours after the blaze began.
Private construction workers cut a natural gas line, San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said. Authorities initially said five of them were missing, but the entire construction crew was found safe, and no other injuries were reported.
"It's complicated," Hayes-White said of stopping the flow of gas through the damaged pipe, though she later acknowledged that "as a fire chief and a resident, yes, I would have liked to see it mitigated.