Further investigation into the explosion and subsequent fire that destroyed a house on Academy Avenue in April and injured three people reveals that the explosion stemmed from an uncapped natural gas valve that entered the house’s kitchen.

As a result, authorities with the Albert Lea Fire Department are stressing the safety of capping gas lines, in an effort to prevent any similar incidents from happening.

“The cause of this fire is accidental,” according to the Fire Department official report of the incident. “Based on interviews and the scene exam, the gas valve to the kitchen was opened. Since it was not capped, natural gas entered the house and an unknown ignition source ignited the natural gas that had migrated to the upper level. After the initial explosion there was still gas entering the kitchen area and that was ignited. Fire then spread to the rest of the main floor.”

The fire, at 1421 Academy Ave., took place just before 6 a.m. April 28. Neighbors described hearing a loud explosion, and then the house was engulfed in flames. Four people were in the house at the time, and three were injured.

The burned house still stands as insurance companies and other entities review the incident. Authorities say it may end up in court.

Investigation of the property

Albert Lea Fire Department Lt. Al Schallock said, in the report, that the most heat damage was seen in the upper level, the kitchen and the area by the back door. The bathroom had the least amount of heat damage, and there are still remains of a mattress and television in the bedroom in the southwest corner.

According to the report, the kitchen sustained the most damage from fire of the main floor rooms. The east wall has fallen out to the east and is lying on the ground.

Most of the basement did not have any fire damage; however, the joists in the north half had charring, the report states.

It says the heaviest charring was in the northeast corner under the kitchen, and in that area there was an uncapped gas line that terminated just below floor level.

Interviews

The tenant of the property, Jose Rafael Valle Ruiz, explained during an interview on the day of the fire that the morning before, he tried to call Alliant Energy because he had been having trouble with the stove, the hot water heater and the furnace, but didn’t talk to anyone, the report states.

He arrived home at 10 p.m. on April 27, and the other three men who were staying that night arrived after that. Those men were Luis Marino Reyes, Servando Ramos Flores and Robert Rivera.

Ruiz told interviewers he was awoken by the explosion the morning of April 28 and saw that the storm door was blown off, but the inside door was stuck and couldn’t be opened.

“He saw his friends coming down from upstairs and they were badly burned,” the report stated. “He helped one of them out through the front door window and went back for the other one.

“When he was helping the other one, there was a second explosion and that’s when he got burned. The fire came at him from the kitchen area. His friends thought the roof had collapsed on them.”

During a second interview later that day, Ruiz said he had moved into the house four or five months prior, according to the report. The stove — an electric one — was the same stove there as when he moved in. When he got home from school in Austin on April 27 at 10 p.m., he smelled gas.

He told investigators Rivera had called Alliant at 11 p.m. and talked with a representative.

“He told them it was a gas emergency and no one showed up, so they went to bed,” the report states.

Around that same time the water heater started to work, so he thought Alliant had done something remotely to fix it, the report states.

Property manager Mike Kurth told investigators he and his father, Steve Kurth, got the house on a contract for deed about three years ago and that was when the electric stove was put in.

“He couldn’t remember if there was a gas stove in at that time, but he does remember carrying the electric stove in,” the report states.

On April 29, local fire investigators and a fire and explosion consultant for Project Time & Cost, representing the insurance company, connected an air bottle to the main gas line entering the house and flowed air into the line.

“I observed water, then air come out of the end that terminates at the kitchen floor,” Schallock wrote in the report.

That indicates natural gas still was leaking out of the line.