An electrical vault explosion that injured two members of the Orange County Fire Authority Sunday night was captured by a police cruiser's dashboard camera.
The video from the Brea police officer's vehicle shows Capt. David Wolf being blown close to 10 feet in the air as a fellow firefighter stood next to him while they checked out a smoking manhole in Yorba Linda around 7:30 p.m., according to KCAL-TV.
The 23-year veteran and the rookie firefighter suffered only minor burns and bruisers.
"I consider myself very, very lucky," Wolf told the news station. "The next thing I remember I was in the dirt, a kind of flower bed, across from the sidewalk."
He said that when his crew arrived at the scene, there was only a small amount of smoke coming from the manhole.
"There wasn't a lot of smoke coming out, so I thought, 'OK, the incident is kind of over. It's now just protect anyone from going into an open manhole,' " he said.
As he looked down to spot the electrical fire inside the vault, it suddenly exploded.
He said that he tried to roll away from it, and before he knew it, he was being dragged away by the back of his coat to safety.
