SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Multiple underground explosions sent flames shooting into the air in San Francisco’s Financial District on Thursday morning, prompting street closures and a shelter-in-place order as firefighters responded to several affected underground vaults.
Surveillance video captured flames erupting as people ran for cover. Additional video showed people seeking safety inside a nearby building.
San Francisco worker Ibrahim Mihtar described seeing fire coming from a PG&E vault.
“I talked to the security guard I see something going on in the PGE hole and the fire came up, a big one!” Mihtar said.
MORE: Vault fire in SF’s Western Addition neighborhood knocks out power near 2 schools
ABC7 Eyewitness News cameras also captured the sounds of multiple explosions Thursday morning.
The San Francisco Fire Department blocked off a six-block area and issued a shelter-in-place order. The order was lifted five hours after the explosions.
“Crews arrived and noticed that the smoke was traveling to different vaults. There were three vaults involved,” San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Bruno Bovo said.
The closures prevented many workers from reaching their offices.
“Everything is blocked off so just kind of migrated over here and then just saw that everything was taped off and just can’t get into my office,” said Christiaan Bassig, who works in San Francisco.
PG&E confirmed the explosion was caused by a low-voltage underground cable. One business undergoing renovations on the block lost power.
When asked what led to the incident, PG&E spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian said the utility would know more after examining the equipment.
“We are going to learn more once we have chance to look at the equipment and investigate. We do know what kind of equipment it is which is that low voltage cable. We did see some smoldering,” Sarkissian said.
All PG&E equipment in the area is underground.
About two weeks earlier, the utility responded to another vault fire near Salesforce Tower.
San Francisco Supervisor Danny Sauter, who represents the district, raised concerns about PG&E’s response considering a December power outage that affected more than 100,000 PG&E customers and led to a hearing.
“They made a few commitments, but they didn’t go far enough. That I why I’m concerned here because they weren’t taking it seriously after that incident which was a major incident and lost a third of the city’s power how do we make sure they take it seriously this time,” Sauter said.
Asked what he planned to do, Sauter said, “Our plan is to keep their feet to the fire and make sure they know that we are watching. I would say the rent payers and residents of San Francisco are pretty fed up with PG&E”
Sauter said he is considering holding a hearing to question PG&E about how often its underground equipment is inspected.
Copyright © 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
Source: abc7news.com
