Investigators believe natural gas caused a single-story apartment building to explode Thursday morning in Walled Lake, injuring a woman and three men inside.
The blast in Apartment 3 in the nine-unit, motel-like building at 5:54 a.m. appears to be accidental and due to gas, Walled Lake Police Chief Paul Shakinas said. Consumers Energy investigators were also on the scene.
"One victim stepped out to smoke a cigarette and when she walked back into the building, that's when the explosion occurred," Shakinas said at about 8 a.m., as an Oakland County Sheriff's Office K-9 walked around the charred remains of the unit at the Lighthouse Landing Apartments, 42880 14 Mile Road.
A blue jacket, burned and tattered, laid nearby on 14 Mile.
A loud thud just before 6 a.m. woke up Alan Meranda, 50, who lives just east of the apartment building. He went outside to check it out.
"I saw fire on the roof," Meranda said. "I didn't smell gas, but it wasn't a normal burning smell. So I don't know what it was."
The woman, 26, and three men inside, two 19-year-olds and a 24-year-old, were all injured in the blast, two with very serious burns to their upper body and heads, Shakinas said. All were transported to Botsford Hospital with plans to send them to the University of Michigan Hospital's burn unit, Walled Lake Fire Captain Matt Salow said.
"They people who self-evacuated were walking and talking when I got here -- they met me at the curb," Salow said. "They were all very dazed when I got here, unsure of what had happened yet."
No one in the adjacent units or other apartments in the building -- made up of one-room units with a bathroom -- were injured. Firefighters went door-to-door, evacuating the building when they arrived.
"One resident was deaf; the fire department pulled him out," Shakinas said. "He had no idea what happened."
Shakinas said investigators heard reports of shots fired just before the blast. Although they believe the noise may have been part of the explosion, they intend to investigate those claims, he said.
Police were at the same unit as recently as a week ago to investigate a reported assault with a crowbar, Shakinas said. Those involved declined to press charges, he said.
Copyright 2012 - Detroit Free Press
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
