It sounded like a bomb going off.
That’s how Keri Vandongen, who lives across the street, described what she heard when a townhouse on Mahogany Drive S.E. in Calgary exploded and burst into flames shortly after 3 p.m on Thursday (Nov. 21, 2024).
Vandongen said she was out for a walk with her dogs around 2:45 p.m. when she bumped into a friend who asked her, “do you smell gas?”
A short time later, Vandongen said she heard the explosion and saw the townhouse on fire.
“The explosion came toward our home and there was debris all over our yard,” Vandongen said.
Luckily, there was nobody living in the townhouse at the time.
The day after the explosion, ATCO confirmed in a statement to Global News that it had crews in the area at the time of the explosion — responding to reports a third-party contractor had struck a gas line “during residential construction work.”
“The line that was hit was in the immediate vicinity of the explosion,” the statement said, adding the company had “started receiving calls from residents about the smell of natural gas in the area and had crews responding to those calls as well.”
The Calgary Fire Department said it received multiple 911 calls around 3:10 p.m. on Thursday.
CFD battalion chief Scott Cowan said, when fire crews arrived at the townhouse complex in Mahogany, they discovered “a collapsed structure and a large fire burning with debris thrown quite some distance across the street,” that appeared consistent with an explosion.
Another neighbour, Manjula Patel, told Global News she also smelled “very bad gas” Thursday afternoon and a short time later she heard “a big blast and my house was shaking.”
“It was scary,” Patel said, adding she looked out her window, saw the fire, and “called 911 right away.”
While neighbours are thankful there weren’t any serious injuries and more homes weren’t destroyed, they’re now asking why ATCO didn’t inform them of the possible gas leak before the explosion happened.
CFD confirmed four people were injured in the blast and fire — two firefighters and two civilians — including one who was taken to hospital with minor injuries.
ATCO said one of those people was a company employee who suffered minor injuries.
The statement said ATCO is working with investigators, who were back on scene Friday, cleaning up debris from the neighbourhood and sifting through the charred remains of the home.
CFD is also asking anyone with photos or videos of the incident prior to the arrival of fire crews to email them to piofire@calgary.ca.