Probe Focuses on Tank in Fatal Blast : Explosion: Fragments of an acetylene cylinder, used in welding, were found at the scene where 2 men were killed. A dozen homes were damaged.

Investigators searching the rubble of an explosion and fire that devastated a southwest Los Angeles home--killing two men--concentrated Monday on the possibility that the blast was touched off by gas from a tank used in welding.

Fragments of a tank that may have held highly flammable acetylene gas were found at the scene, along with several commercial-size oxygen cylinders, also used in welding, Battalion Chief William R. Bamattre said.

“We’re focusing on the acetylene tank,” Bamattre said. “It appears they did automotive work.”

Bamattre said investigators had not eliminated natural gas as a possible source of the blast that shook the 1600 block of West 51st Street late Sunday afternoon, damaging a dozen homes, injuring four people and leaving five adults and three children homeless.

The coroner’s office identified the remains as those of two males, but the identities had not been determined late Monday afternoon. Neighbors said two brothers lived in the destroyed house.

According to neighbors, a man had been working on a car near a small wood-frame house at 1623 W. 51st St. Sunday afternoon before the explosion, Bamattre said.

Scores of curious spectators pushed up to fire and police lines marked by yellow tape Monday.

Two burned-out cars sat near the explosion site. Large oxygen bottles were scattered about an open area several feet away. Houses on both sides of the blasted home were damaged by flames or flying metal. Windows were broken in several nearby homes.

The oxygen bottles offered no threat, Bamattre said. If an acetylene tank was the cause of the blast, he said, oxygen from ruptured cylinders would have enforced the explosion, but oxygen would not have caused it.

Investigators located two teenagers and a 23-year-old identified by neighbors as either residents or visitors to the destroyed home, Bamattre said. The three were at a family barbecue Sunday afternoon at the time of the blast, he said.