A leaking propane tank was found in a Sterling, Virginia, home shortly before it exploded Friday night, killing one firefighter and hospitalizing four other first responders.
Loudoun County officials confirmed the blast, which terrified residents and prompted calls to WTOP.
Trevor Brown, 45, has been identified as the firefighter killed in the explosion, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue announced in a news release Saturday morning.
Brown had been with the Sterling Volunteer Fire Company since 2016.
“Please keep Firefighter Brown’s family, friends, and colleagues in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time, and we ask that the family’s privacy be respected,” the fire department said in the news release.
Emergency medical services personnel from Loudoun and Fairfax counties identified 13 injured patients in addition to Brown — including 11 first responders and two civilians with “varying degree of injuries,” according to the release.
‘Total devastation’
According to Sterling’s Volunteer Fire Company, a call came in around 7:30 p.m. for a gas leak in the 300 block of Silver Ridge Drive.
Firefighters came across a leaking 500-gallon underground propane tank when they responded to the scene, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue said in a Saturday news release. The explosion happened “a short time later,” the department said.
James Williams, the assistant chief of operations for Loudoun County’s fire department, spoke to reporters about the incident during a press briefing just before 11 p.m. Friday.
“Soon after arrival, with firefighters inside, the house did explode,” Williams said.
As for the home: “Total devastation. There’s a debris field well into the street and into the neighboring homes,” he told reporters.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has joined the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department as they work to determine what specifically caused the blast.
“This is believed to be an isolated incident and there is no ongoing danger to the community,” the news release said.
Officials did not identify the firefighter killed in the blaze during the press conference but did say the broader community, including peers in nearby jurisdictions, was deeply affected by the incident.
“It’s a huge physical and emotional toll on everyone associated with the fire department. Obviously, the people who are trapped, the rescuers that are going in to try to pull them out, the incident commander,” Williams said.
Officials said the fire would continue to smolder Friday evening, as the department’s fire investigation met overnight snowfall.
“This is going to be an extended scene complicated by the weather,” Williams said at the conclusion of the briefing.
Community members feel effects of explosion
Footage from WTOP news partners at 7News and Chopper7 showed firefighters and first responders searching the rubble of a home on Silver Ridge Drive in Sterling.
By around 9 p.m., social media users were still trying to figure out what happened, with one person in Sterling saying: “Enormous boom shook the whole house just now. Ran upstairs, outside with flashlights and all the neighbors were doing the same. Apparently, a house exploded on a street nearby.”
John Padgett, a neighbor living just down the road from the explosion, told reporters he smelled gas while walking his dog Friday evening. The explosion, he said, shook the whole house.
“It was a huge explosion,” Padgett said, adding that “it looked like an inferno,” and insulation fell like ash. “It was horrific. It looked like something out of a war zone.”
Another call came in for a report of a structure fire at 8:25 p.m., with an ambulance responding at around the same time.
“A large explosion noise was felt in Cascades/Sterling area at 8:25 pm,” a listener wrote to WTOP. “It shook everyone’s houses to the extent they all shook, and we all thought a tree hit our individual houses.”
WTOP listeners as far away as Montgomery County, Maryland, reported a loud boom at around the same time that the Loudoun County home caught fire.
“Shook houses for 15 miles from Germantown/Gaithersburg/Rockville,” another listener writes.
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