Firefighters sift through the rubble of a house that exploded in the Sunset District Thursday morning.
San Francisco Fire Department/TwitterNew security camera footage released by KPIX on Saturday reveals the instant a house in San Francisco’s Sunset District exploded, killing one woman and leaving her caretaker and a firefighter injured.
The explosion and three-alarm fire broke out at approximately 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning on the 1700 block of 22nd Avenue. Footage from a Swann security camera nearby shows the startling impact of the blaze as a burst of orange light emanates from the home, accompanied by a loud boom. Shattered glass from windows and broken pieces of plywood clattered to the sidewalk below. The sheer force of the explosion also caused the back passenger door of a car parked on the street to swing open as smoke filled the air and the alarms from other parked vehicles rang out.
A woman was inside the car at the time the house erupted in flames, and two other people were seen walking across the street, though all appeared to be unharmed.
“Many Sunset residents felt and heard the explosion and were shaken up,” District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio tweeted.
Photos and video from the San Francisco Fire Department show the home had completely collapsed by 10 a.m. Thursday. The two neighboring homes also sustained some damage but were still standing. Engardio said at least three homes on the block were “uninhabitable” and that “windows and garages [were] blown out across the street.”
On Friday, police announced that investigators had discovered “an active illegal narcotics manufacturing lab” in the home. Police arrested Darron Price, a 53-year-old San Francisco resident, in connection with the deadly explosion. He was booked on charges of involuntary manslaughter, manufacturing narcotics and two counts of child endangerment. Two children who lived in the home were in school at the time, KPIX reported. The woman who was found deceased in the home has not been publicly identified.
The case remains an active investigation.
SFGATE news features reporter Ariana Bindman contributed to this report.