Man Burned in Boat Explosion : Fire: After the 31-year-old motorboat he was working on burst into flames, his wife pulled him to safety. He suffered second-degree burns, and damage was put at $400,000.

A 57-year-old man was working in his garage on his 1959 Chris-Craft motorboat Wednesday when a fuel pump that he had installed a month ago exploded, engulfing him in flames and severely burning his house, authorities said.

The man, Granville Wall, who was pulled from the fire by his wife, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was listed in serious condition with second-degree burns on his arms and face. His wife, Donna, was not injured.

Neighbors said that Wall spent many hours restoring the 31-year-old mahogany wood cruiser.

“He loved that boat,” said Sheldon Rothman, a neighbor. “He just spent a fortune redoing it. It had been in the family for years. . . . It was beautiful.”

The fire, which took more than 30 firefighters 24 minutes to put out, destroyed about 50% of the house and caused about $400,000 in damage, Orange County Fire Department spokeswoman Marie Sabol said. All that was left of the boat were the skeletal remains of its wooden hull.

The explosion occurred at 1:23 p.m. in the garage of Wall’s single-family home at 5502 Sierra Roja Road. Investigators said the explosion was sparked by a new electrical fuel pump that Wall had installed and was testing in his garage.

“When he started the engine, the thing blew, throwing debris everywhere,” said Irvine Police Officer Rolf Parkes.

Wall, who was standing in the boat when it exploded, tried to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher but was soon overcome by the blaze, Parkes said.

“His wife came out of the house and pulled him out of there,” he said.

In addition to leading her husband out of the garage, Donna Wall moved a Cadillac and another car away from the driveway.

“She acted very quickly,” Sabol said.

When Parkes arrived at the fire, Granville Wall was sitting on the curb across the street.

“He was able to tell me what happened, but he was in a lot of pain. It looked like the skin on his arms melted away,” Parkes said.

Neighbors, many of whom called 911 after the explosion, said that because the fire spread so quickly there was nothing they could do.

“We kind of felt helpless,” said James Jun, 21, who lives next door. “It all happened so fast. We would have gone for our (garden) hose, but somebody stole it last week.”

Jun’s roommate, David Tea, 20, said that smoke filled the garage and that heat from the fire could be felt across the street.

“You couldn’t see anything inside there,” Tea said, looking at the charred garage.

James Buchanan, a neighbor who lives on the other side of the Walls’ home, said the explosion “sounded like a giant firecracker.”

“I was fearful that the fire was going to spread to my house,” Buchanan said. “I feel pretty lucky it didn’t.”

According to fire officials, although the homes on both sides of the Walls’ house were threatened, only Buchanan’s received minor singes.