Gas Tanker Catches Fire During Refueling at Canoga Park Station

A tanker truck caught fire as it was refueling underground storage tanks Thursday at a Canoga Park gas station, closing Topanga Canyon Boulevard for about an hour. No one was injured.

The fire occurred shortly before noon at a Thrifty Oil Co. station at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Bassett Street.

Los Angeles Fire Department officials attributed the fire to gas overflowing from one of the station’s underground tanks. The gasoline formed a pool along the south curb of Bassett Street and was ignited when a young woman parked her car there and turned off the engine, Battalion Chief John Adams said.

The woman, Cecilia Berberian, 19, of Canoga Park, was lucky to escape from the car unhurt, Adams said. That car and two others were destroyed. Five other cars were damaged, one severely.

“As soon as I turned off the key, the car, it blew up,” Berberian said.

Several windows in a two-story commercial building on the north side of Bassett Street were cracked from the heat, fire officials said.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze in about 15 minutes, Adams said. The fire gutted the rear of the tanker truck. A residential area to the west and Canoga Park High School to the east were not evacuated because there was no danger of a large explosion, he said.

Traffic in the Canoga Park area was slowed for about an hour as authorities closed Topanga Canyon Boulevard in both directions.