By Sara Semelka and Janese Heavin
The Columbia Daily Tribune
COLUMBIA, Mo. — An explosion this morning in eastern Columbia destroyed a home and sent a woman to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, and investigators were trying to determine whether a second victim was inside the home.
Authorities would not confirm reports of a fatality, but Columbia Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Sapp said authorities were investigating whether there was a second victim inside the home near Cliff and McNab drives.
Fire crews responded to an explosion at 308 McNab Drive at 11:21 a.m. and arrived to find the house engulfed in 30-foot flames.
An unidentified woman in her 50s or 60s was taken to University Hospital with life-threatening burns, Sapp said. The woman was found in the yard, and Sapp said she might have been blown out by the force of the explosion. He also said officials had reports that a couple lived in the home. “There are two fire investigators on the scene, and they’re looking to find a second victim,” he said.
The fire leveled the house, which county records show was built in 1956 and was owned by Merna and C.M. Sneed.
Sapp declined to speculate about what caused the explosion, although a gas line is suspected.
Crews had to use aerial equipment to squelch the flames because of the awkward topography of the neighborhood, a hilly, wooded area on the fringe of the city’s East Campus area.
“This is one of the more significant fires that we’ve dealt with this year,” Sapp said.
Neighbors said they heard and felt the explosion. “It sounded like a tree fell or a car hit the house,” said University of Missouri senior Jessica Schneider, who lives a few blocks away from the home.
Bart Berger, an MU student who lives off Ann Street, said the blast shook his home. “The first thing I thought was an explosion or a bomb,” he said. “Within minutes, I heard a bunch of fire trucks.”
Berger said he arrived at the scene shortly after emergency crews. “When I first got down here, you’d never make out that this was a house,” he said. “There were major flames, and it went down really quick.”
Berger said the crowd of spectators thinned out after seeing the woman’s singed body on a stretcher. “A lot of people left,” he said. “There was a lot of sympathy.”