A Tree Burns in W. Hollywood : Evacuation: Gas leaking from a pipeline creates a ‘ring of fire’ on Santa Monica Boulevard. About a dozen businesses are forced to close.

Moses did not make an appearance in West Hollywood on Tuesday, but his burning bush was there.

Well, sort of.

Foot-high flames shooting up from a sidewalk formed a dancing ring of fire around a lone ficus tree early Tuesday.

As it turned out, the blaze was fed by an underground gas leak, forcing authorities to shut down a block-long section of Santa Monica Boulevard and evacuate about two dozen people while the source of the leak was located.

“A burning bush. Wasn’t that significant 2,000 years ago?” asked a smiling Berl Dahlstrom, a Los Angeles County Fire Department battalion chief.

In fact, the fire made an odd sight, apparently never threatening people or property but drawing quite a few curious stares.

“It looked funny,” said Abi Whitten, a manager at The Greenery, one of 14 shops that were forced to close for much of the day. “I hadn’t ever seen anything like that.”

Noe Morales, a cook at a pizzeria that was also evacuated, stood bemused on a corner, watching.

“This is an area where you get accustomed to seeing things you’ve never seen before,” said Morales, a native of El Salvador. “Very weird things.”

Firefighters and sheriff’s deputies cordoned off Santa Monica Boulevard between Robertson and San Vicente boulevards after the fire was reported. Traffic was rerouted onto side streets.

Employees from a bank directly in front of the burning tree and from two nearby restaurants that had opened for the breakfast crowd were evacuated. A total of 14 boutiques, cafes and other stores were closed until about 1 p.m.

The leak was found in a natural gas feeder line that runs along the boulevard. Dahlstrom said the escaping vapors were probably ignited by a discarded cigarette or match.

Workers from Southern California Gas Co. used jackhammers to break apart sections of the street in order to reach the pipeline.

Once they found the source of the leak, the workers clamped that part of the pipeline and refilled the holes they had made so normal traffic could resume.

Gas company engineers drilled about a dozen small holes in the sidewalk and blacktop and sucked out samples of gas.

They analyzed the samples to see whether the gas was methane, which occurs naturally in the soil under some Westside neighborhoods, or natural gas from a pipeline. Tests showed it to be natural gas, and workers began searching for the leak.

The leak was traced to a small hole in the eight-inch-wide steel pipeline that was probably caused by corrosion, gas company spokeswoman Denise King said. The 79-year-old pipe was not encased in protective coating, she said, but the metal clamp was expected to serve as a “permanent repair.”

“I would say it was fortunate that it (the leaking gas) came up there (at the tree) rather than accumulating under a building,” King said.

The gas company does not expect similar leaks along the affected line, King said, explaining that the utility has a regular maintenance program that surveys the old lines.

Such leaks are rare, she said.