Higher Awareness of Natural Gas Leaks

People are beginning to pay more attention to the possibilities of gas leaks – after a deadly natural gas explosion in Sun Prairie, and a few in our area last week. Division Chief of Fire Prevention Troy Haase deals with a lot of dangerous situations, but he admits that natural gas leaks are among the scariest calls to respond to, because you’re never really quite sure what will happen. 

People always ask why whole blocks of homes are evacuated and searched, but Haase says there is a good reason behind it. He explains that “the gas seeps under the ground, and then it finds a spot into your house, seeps into your basement and you don’t realize it. And then when your furnace kicks on or the pilot in your water heater or your stove kicks on, then it explodes.”

Haase adds that there can also be too much or too little gas to cause an explosion by itself, but once a door is opened – the mixture with oxygen could also produce a big blast.