Fire officials in Nashau, New Hampshire are saying ice that fell from a mental health care facility roof may have pierced a gas line, triggering an explosion that injured three firefighters.
CBS News reports that Nashau Fire was called February 2 for a gas leak at the Great Nashau Mental Health. While on scene, an explosion occurred that sent three firefighters to the hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries. Sixty were in the building and none were reported injured, but the building was a complete loss.
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“That many people got out of there with nobody getting killed or injured, besides the firefighters, yeah, real close to a miracle,” Nashua Fire Chief Steve Buxton told CBS. “It was a pretty tremendous force that took place there,” he said of the explosion that knocked the bricks off the façade.
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When firefighters arrived they smelled natural gas and heard hissing. Within minutes of their arrival, the explosion occurred, Buxton said at a televised press conference. The incident was still under investigation days after the explosion.
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Buxton credited the department’s training program as well as coordinated training with neighboring departments for how the incident was brought under control.
And BBC is reporting that five people died in two separate residential explosions due to gas leaks in Iran that same week. Local media reported one of the blasts was at an eight-story residential complex where 14 were injured. Firefighters rescued one child from the debris at the second explosion site.
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