Newly Installed Gas Line Blamed After Blast Levels Ohio Home

A fire chief says a central Ohio neighborhood had a new gas line installed recently and some residents smelled gas in the days before an explosion leveled a two-story home and killed a family’s dog.

Newark’s interim fire chief, Patrick Connor, tells The Columbus Dispatch that residents didn’t report the smell, probably because they saw gas company trucks in the area and figured the situation was being handled.

Connor says fire investigators couldn’t determine exactly what caused the gas-line explosion Sunday in the community roughly 25 miles east of Columbus. He calls it miraculous that the homeowners escaped without serious injury. Their dog was killed.

A spokesman for the gas service provider in that area says the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is now handling the investigation.