Explosion Blamed on Gas Leak

An explosion and fire apparently caused by leaking natural gas Friday collapsed part of a three-story Encino apartment, leaving one person critically injured and scraping nerves worn raw by this week’s warnings of terrorism.

In addition to one man badly burned, at least four people were treated for less serious complaints caused by the blast at the 140-unit Park Encino, sandwiched between Ventura Boulevard and the Ventura Freeway. More than 300 people were forced from their homes.

“Now they’re bombing Encino,” former soldier Everett Betts recalled thinking as the blast shook his apartment in an adjacent building.

Although the cause remained under investigation, Mayor James K. Hahn said early indications pointed to a gas leak, not a deliberate criminal act. Hahn, who rushed to the scene, added that it was remarkable so few people were hurt, given the destruction.

The explosion occurred just after 11 a.m. at 5325 Newcastle Ave., shattering windows in surrounding buildings and showering debris over neighboring properties. Most of the damage was confined to one 10-unit wing, portions of which collapsed and burned.

Some residents first thought the sharp jolt was an earthquake. But, in a sign of the times, many others feared the building had come under terrorist attack.

“Everyone was panicking and yelling, ‘Evacuate! Evacuate! It’s a bomb!’” said Jehan Gasser, who had lived in the building for 21/2 years.

Clyde Agnew, 45, who works in shipping and receiving at Mission College, was in his mother’s third-floor apartment.

“All of a sudden, KABLOOM!” he recalled. “Glass is flying at me everywhere. It blew my Mom’s wall out.... It just shook the whole building, the whole neighborhood.”

Agnew, who was not hurt, said he first thought a bomb had gone off.

There was talk of terrorism all through the neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish and includes many Israeli immigrants.

Shortly after the explosion, one man, cell phone to his ear, was matter-of-factly telling someone that terrorists had blown up his building.

Both the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department sent investigators and bomb technicians to the blast site. FBI spokeswoman Cheryl Mimura later said there is no reason to believe terrorism played any part in the explosion.

The Los Angeles Fire Department dispatched 40 fire engines and trucks, 200 firefighters, 12 ambulances and a helicopter and extinguished the fire in three hours.

“I’m very proud of the work the firefighters did today,” said Hahn. He called the LAFD “the best fire department in the world.”

Authorities said five people required medical treatment, three of them at hospitals.

Dennis Cohen, 47, was in critical but stable condition at the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks with burns over 55% of his body. Mary Jacobson, 76, was undergoing treatment at Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center. Her husband, Larry Jacobson, said his wife had trouble breathing after the explosion, but was doing well.

Jacobson said he and his wife live in a second-floor apartment in the damaged building. He heaped praise on emergency workers. “These guys really came on like gangbusters,” he said. “The firemen and paramedics--and the police came soon after. They all did a great job.”

One firefighter was treated at a hospital for chest pains, “as a result of strenuous firefighting,” said Assistant Fire Chief Bill Bisson.

In addition, two people were treated at the scene for minor complaints.

At the Grossman Burn Center, Dr. Peter Grossman said Cohen will have skin-grafting surgery on Monday and treatment is expected to last six to eight weeks.

Cohen was initially treated at Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, where Dr. Vincent Green quoted him as saying he lived in the building and “has absolutely no clue what happened.”

Tax records indicate the building is owned by Avi and Janis Anne Rojany. Property records list their address as a West Los Angeles apartment. Neither could be reached for comment Friday.

Department of Building and Safety records show several complaints at the Encino building during the last decade. The most recent was in January 1997 when a tenant reported that part of the ceiling had collapsed, according to department records. That file is still open.

In March 1994, inspectors determined that Rojany had left the central gas heating system in disrepair and installed improperly, according to city records. By the end of that year, records show 90% of the required repair work had been done.

City building and safety spokesman Bob Steinbach would not comment on the records.

Many residents said Friday they had been smelling gas.

“I heard at least a dozen people complain on Monday and now it’s Friday and this happened,” said Adam Frankel, a resident on the first floor.

Late Friday afternoon, LAFD Battalion Chief Bob Franco picked his way through the wreckage of the building: a courtyard littered with roof pieces and shards of glass, the kidney-shaped pool black with soot. Only one wall still stood where the blast and fire originated. Debris and rubble was still smoldering.

Franco said that the explosion had caused floors and roofs to collapse in a “pancake effect.”

“It’s like a dynamite blast or something,” he said, surveying the scene.

At 6 p.m., residents were escorted into the building by firefighters to gather belongings. People emerged with big rolling suitcases, a guitar, vanity kits. Some retrieved televisions. One person emerged with a 2-liter bottle of Dr Pepper.

Alex Fard, 57, retrieved his most valuable possessions--three Persian parakeets--and headed for the Red Cross shelter.

For Fard, Friday would be his second experience at a Red Cross shelter. The first was when he lost his home in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. His next residence, he joked, might be outside of California.

Franco said that 300 to 400 people would be displaced, at least temporarily.

Mick Fenton, a spokesman for the American Red Cross, said that residents of nearby buildings were allowed back in Friday evening. Those who lived in the damaged apartment complex were offered cots at an evacuation center at nearby Portola Middle School.

Earlier in the day, administrators at Portola had used the school’s computer to find the names of students living within the 5300 and 5400 blocks of Newcastle Avenue.

“I went on the [public address system] and explained what happened, told them to remain in class and to be calm,” said Principal Stephen Lawler.

Lawler then asked students who lived in apartment buildings near the burning building to come into his office and to call their parents or other family members.

“All of the students either talked to their parents or a relative who assured them they were OK,” Lawler said.

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Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein, Sufiya Abdur-Rahman, Manuel Gamiz Jr., Daren Briscoe, Wendy Thermos, Jean Guccione, Richard Fausset, Andrea Perera, Carol Chambers, Karima A. Haynes, Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, Patricia Ward Biederman, Sharon Bernstein, Bob Pool and Mitchell Landsberg and editorial assistants Maggie Barnett and Sylvia Latham.