A quiet East Bay neighborhood woke to chaos Thursday morning when a home erupted in an explosion, scattering debris across lawns and shaking houses for blocks.
According to Fox News, the blast, captured on a nearby doorbell camera, showed a Hayward-area home disintegrating in a flash before flames tore through the property.
Within seconds, the footage rolled into the sound of alarms and sirens racing toward the scene.
“It was scary,” said Christian Maldanado, whose camera caught the moment everything went up. “It was like a scene from Hollywood. It was unreal.”
Firefighters arrived to a street transformed into a disaster zone. The Alameda County Fire Department said 75 firefighters fought the three-alarm blaze as it spread through the wreckage. Three buildings were destroyed outright, and several neighboring homes sustained heavy damage.
Six people were rushed to area hospitals. PG&E later confirmed that three of the injured were company workers who had been in the neighborhood responding to a damaged gas line. The other three — residents of the home that exploded — suffered severe third-degree burns, according to a family member.
The chain of events began hours before the blast. Pacific Gas & Electric said it was alerted around 7:35 a.m. that a construction crew — unaffiliated with the utility — had struck an underground gas line during ongoing sidewalk and bike-lane upgrades in the Ashland community.
Utility workers arrived and attempted to isolate the leak. But gas was seeping from multiple points, complicating the job. PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian said the flow of gas was finally shut off at 9:25 a.m.
Roughly ten minutes later, the explosion ripped through the neighborhood.
Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Nishimoto said three structures on two lots were left in ruins. Firefighters were briefly forced to retreat when fallen power lines sent electric shocks through the area.
Inside nearby homes, the impact was just as jarring.
“Every window in my house was blown open,” said a resident identified only as Deborah. “There are cracks in the ceiling. My house is destroyed.”
The blast forced the temporary shutdown of Interstate 238 as emergency crews secured the scene and contained the fire.
By midday, investigators were still combing through the wreckage to determine what ignited the gas-filled home — and how a routine construction project turned into a neighborhood-wide emergency.
