A gas explosion in Seattle damaged a joint apartment and business on Thursday. It happened at Major Styles Natural Beauty Salon on South Genessee Street and Rainier Avenue South, on the edge of the Columbia City neighborhood.
The Seattle Fire Department said no one was injured.
The cause: a camping-size propane tank that heated up and exploded. Fire Lieutenant Harold Webb said the gas explosion happened when the occupant was cooking with a butane stove and left it unattended.
Webb: “There was a Coleman type of canister in the vicinity, and then that bottle became so heated that it actually exploded. There was enough of the explosion that [it] actually damaged the building.”
Webb said there's extensive structural damage to the building, which houses the salon and one upstairs apartment unit.
The occupant and his dog were able to escape and have been connected with the Red Cross for support.
Webb said the lesson is don't leave cooking unattended, especially while using unconventional tools like a butane oven indoors.
He said there is no estimate yet of how much repairs would cost and whether the building is still inhabitable.
In size and cause, Webb said it was nothing like the major gas explosion in the Greenwood neighborhood earlier this year.
