Palm Desert Neighborhood Back To Normal After Gas Leak, Fire

Desert Falls Country Club resident Bill Brinton said his wife alerted him about the gas leak fire in front of their condo Wednesday night.

“She ran out here in her bathing suit screaming, ‘The neighborhood’s on fire!’ I ran out and didn’t know what was going on. The flames were really huge,” said Brinton.

It all started around 3:30 p.m. when a resident called Southern California Gas Company to report the smell of gas.

Just after 7 p.m. the fire sparked as crews reached the leak coming from an underground service line.

One worker suffered minor burns.

The fire briefly forced the evacuation of 33 homes.

“The whole neighborhood was out trying to see what was going on. The fire people finally herded everybody away, which was the right thing to do,” said Brinton.

The gas company said the neighbor who called about the smell also did the right thing.

Natural gas is colorless and odorless. The gas company adds a strong odorant just for situations like this one.

“So it will encourage our customers to contact us. They will smell that odorant fairly quickly. And the leak may be fairly minor. You could have a pinhole of a leak which could be a minor leak, but yet you’re truly going to smell that natural gas smell,” said Deborah McGarrey, public affairs manager for Southern California Gas Company.

The cause of the leak remains under investigation.