Explosion Victims Remain Hospitalized

The investigation continues to expand into last week’s massive explosion and fire. An exact cause has not been released but the California Public Utilities Commission said today they are looking closely at a tractor operating near the gas pipeline.

Six victims remain hospitalized at the CRMC burn unit, five of them are inmates and one is a Fresno County Public Works employee. A ball of fire went up about 100 feet last Friday when a gas line ruptured at the Fresno County Sheriff’s shooting range, a total of twelve people were injured.

Fresno County Supervisor Henry Perea gave an update on the county employee "He was on a ventilator so he could not speak but he could respond based on the movements of his arms. He could respond to people talking to him and he was hearing."

Supervisor Perea also said 40 percent of the employee’s body was burned. What he was doing is still unclear and pending investigation from the California Public Utilities Commission, Fresno Fire and  Fresno County Public Works.

"They were working in the range and they were setting the stage to upgrade the berms where the officers shoot into. What went wrong, we’re still trying to piece together what exactly were the causes of what occurred," Perea said.

Supervisor Perea was on Highway 99 and saw the smoke and flames of the explosion, he was stuck in traffic for quite some time but didn’t know a county employee was involved until the phone calls started coming in.

"Then it was just trying to get the information to see what exactly had occurred, who was injured etc so it was a lot of chaos the first couple of hours," Perea said.