RFD battles three alarm fire hours after SFD responds to fire and explosion

Page Last Updated: Friday July 30, 2010 11:28pm PDT

With hot weather and windy conditions, it was a busy day Friday for firefighters in Reno and Sparks. They responded to two serious incidents, including a three alarm fire, and an explosion.

The question is what sparked the fire in a vacant home in Northwest Reno. We revisited the scene a few hours after the fire, where investigators had just wrapped up their search for clues. They are now are in the process of figuring out how this fire started.

This was the fiery scene, just after 3 pm on Bowman Drive. That's off Seventh Street, near Keystone. A Reno battalion chief told us the fire in a vacant home quickly spread to the neighboring home at 820 Bowman, in part due to the wind and the hot, dry conditions that acted as an accelerant.

With two homes involved, it became a three alarm fire, with five engines and two trucks. When firefighters arrived, they stopped the fire from spreading to a third home. Meantime both homes were ruined. But fire crews saved many of the belongings in the second home, where Mike Branson and his family lived. Branson praised the firefighters for saving his dogs, his family photo albums, and other valuable items inside his home, as they fought the fire.

It was a hot, exhausting day for many firefighters. The division chief told us they no longer have the crews for rotations they used to have, so some off duty crews were called in for relief. The fortunate news is no one was injured today. And as for that cause, it is under investigation.

In Sparks, fire crews were left to clean up a diesel fuel leak after an explosion in a warehouse Friday morning. It happened at Advanced Refining Concepts on Coney Island Drive. As of Friday night, that business was still without power. The batallion chief assigned to the incident said crews were unable to restore it.

There were three injuries from the explosion. A sparks man is recovering in the hospital with third degree burns Friday night. A gas tank filled with bio-diesel fuel exploded into his face and upper body. An employee at the warehouse was taken to the hospital for burns. Also, a firefighter was treated for heat exhaustion.

The batallion chief told us he was released and will be back on duty tomorrow. Employees at the plant said that unloading fuel from one tank to another set off the explosion. Sparks Fire Marshall Bob King told us an industrial waste company has conducted tests at the spill site....and the tests show no bio-diesel fuels have flowed into the drains or into the sewer system.

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