Everything was casual when Juliana Hand got on the elevator with some firefighters at The Lofts at Wazee Wire Works, where she lives, in LoDo tonight. They were checking for a gas leak on the roof, they told her.
Then a boom from above made the elevator shaft rumble and car shake.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, the world is falling down,” she said.
On the second floor, the elevator stopped and she was ordered out.
On the roof a flash fire from a gas-powered heating-and-air unit threw a firefighter at least six feet. He was unidentified but is expected to be OK, said Fire Department Lt. Phil Champagne.
“We were very lucky,” he said. “It does not appear he suffered any burns.”
The fire did not blaze and was quickly extinguished. Xcel Emergy shut down the gas to the unit, and no leaks or fumes were detected inside, Champagne said.
Firefighters were near the lofts on Wazee Street between 14th and 15th streets, this evening about 6:30 when a person told them he smelled gas near the building. Firefighters used meters to track the leak to the rooftop, Champagne said.
As the firefighter was walking by the HVAC unit, a fireball belched out with enough force to send the man flying. Investigators still don’t know what caused the flash, he said.
He said firefighters feel lucky that their colleague wasn’t more seriously injured. The flash also spared a fire in the heavily commercial and residential neighborhood.
As ladder trucks and dozens of firefighters dragged hoses under the flashing lights of their trucks, diners at the Wazee Supper Club at 15th and Wazee enjoyed their meal unfazed.
“It’s always something in LoDo,” said neighborhood resident Bradley Bain. “At least no one was seriously injured. We’re not always that lucky.”
