Car explosion in Vancouver’s West End

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – There’s been an explosion in Vancouver’s West End.

Gabe Roder with Vancouver Fire says the explosion at Nicola and Robson was caused by an acetylene tank that was being stored in the car and it obviously had a leak. The action of unlocking the vehicle with a FOB key was enough to cause the gas to explode.

“There is extensive damage to a number of buildings in the area. Some of the damage went as high as 12-storeys high,” Roder says.

The owner of the car is a plumber named Michel who lives in the neighbourhood.

He says he had no idea pressing the unlock button on his keychain would have caused such a huge explosion.

“I unlocked it from across the street and it blew up,” he tells News1130.

“It was gas.  It’s a tank that has a hose attached to it and on the end of the hose there’s a regulator and you have a dial you can open it with.  It must have been cracked open and leaked into the car, filling the car.  [It’s for] soldering copper pipes together,” he explains.

“Lucky,” he says.  “If I was even ten feet closer or whatever…”

Two people who were driving by when the car blew up got some nasty cuts from flying glass.

“They had glass in their face and in their hands and they were upset, obviously,” says Laura McLaren who lives in a ground level apartment across the street.  “They’ll be fine, but I’m sure that it was a bad day for them.”

The windows of McLaren’s suite were shattered and she had to clean up some glass, but the blinds on her windows kept most of it out of her apartment.

“My initial reaction was I was upset,” McLaren says.  “It was a disturbing thing to see, I mean people were screaming.  It sounded like a bomb going off.  You could hear the boom and then there was the smell.  It was a chemical, rubber burning smell.”

Rebecca Bolwitt — Miss 604 — says it blew up right outside her place.

“I just woke up and magnets fell off our fridge. Our window blew out and it’s broken. There’s a giant ball of flame is out front of our window and I’m shaking.”

Vancouver-West End M-L-A Spencer Chandra Herbert lives near the site of the blast.

He says neighbours are shocked. “When you have a hood of a car up 12-feet in the air, in a tree, in a busy residential neighbourhood where normally at this time in the morning people would be walking down the street on their way to work, it’s pretty scary.”

Chandra Herbert says he had just woken up when he heard the explosion.

This is a very rare occurrence but there are ways to make sure this doesn’t happen to you

How common is it for you to spark some flames when trying to unlock or start your car with a keyless remote?

Peter Mendoza with SoundsGood Auto Services in Coquitlam has installed tons of car alarms for customers that carry gas products and welding equipment and he’s never heard of this happening.

“I don’t know, to me, it really seems mythical but maybe there’s a one in a million chance it could happen.”

Vancouver Fire is extending a warning to anyone buying or transporting a barbecue to be careful, given this morning’s blast. They say keeping any type of propane tank in the car is a big no-no.

Anything with acetylene should never be kept indoors, let alone in your car.

Roder says it must be kept in a well ventilated space, otherwise there is the risk of an explosion. “And it could happen with barbecue propane cylinders, just like the ones we have in our backyards. So it’s not about a plumber, it’s about any of us who use any type of gas, just be very careful when you’re using these gases because they can all be very volatile in the wrong environment.”

He says you should always keep propane tanks or something similar in a well-ventilated space and never leave them in the car on a hot day.

Dave Helman, a welding instructor at BCIT says it’s even worse if you’re keeping any tanks in the trunk of your vehicle. “People are recommended to transport acetylene in the back of a pick-up truck that’s secured, where it can be ventilated and there won’t be any chance of it exploding.”

Although rare, the exact same thing happened in Stoneham, Massachusetts a couple of months ago. A woman’s 2012 Honda Civic blew up after she hit clicked on the fob and her boyfriend’s welding equipment was sitting in the trunk.