Photo: WSVN
A person is dead and four others are injured following a gas explosion at a Miami-Dade County vehicle maintenance facility in Southwest Miami-Dade.
7Skyforce hovered above the scene of the blast at 6100 block of Southwest 87th Avenue, late Monday morning.
Forty Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units responded to reports of an explosion. The call was upgraded to a First Alarm fire to provide additional personnel.
The explosion took place at the gas pumps where maintenance crews and fire department officials come to fill up their service vehicles with fuel.
MDFR said the explosion came from an underground fuel tank.
The force from the impact caused a canopy near the pumps to be blown sideways.
“When our units arrived, they did find an overhang that had been partially destroyed [and an] active fire that was coming out from underground,” said MDFR Chief Ray Jadallah.
Fire crews deployed hose lines to conduct a fire attack, successfully extinguishing the flames.
Officials found one person dead and four others injured. Two adults were transported as trauma alerts to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital. Another adult was transported to a local hospital and the fourth patient was assessed on scene and did not require transport.
One of those injured is a Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office lieutenant.
Following the explosion, first responders quickly got to work on making sure everyone was accounted for at Cherokee Enterprises, the company that had a crew working at the facility at the time of the explosion.
“I’m going to need you to contact Cherokee Enterprises. We need a count of how many employees they had at this site,” an emergency responder said.
Cherokee Enterprises, which is also known as CEI, is a Medley-based fueling company that does work at fueling facilities.
Family members of CEI employees were seen rushing to the scene to ask for information from authorities about what happened.
Officials have not publicly identified any of the victims.
“At this time, we are not releasing identities because we are still in the process of making contact with family members,” said MDSO Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz.
Cordero-Stutz did confirm the hospitalized victims were in stable condition.
Authorities said they are working with the State Fire Marshal and the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office to determine what led to the deadly blast.
“We work together, we try to determine the cause and origin. I feel confident that they will in the next couple of days,” said Jadallah.
7News reached out to CEI but were told the company had no comment at this time.
A section of Southwest 87th Avenue remains closed as authorities continue their investigation.
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Source: Wsvn
