Rapid City Fire Department evacuates homes after a gas leak

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - A gas leak caused the Rapid City Fire Department to evacuate people from their homes Wednesday morning.

The fire department was called to a vacant house at the 1400 block of Racine Street because of high gas levels in the home. The call was made around 8:30 a.m. this morning; homes within 100 feet on both sides of the house were evacuated until the power was shut off and the gas was ventilated from the vacant home.

“Eliminating this hazard would be to eliminate our ignition source and then to evacuate the area and then what we will do is we’ll ventilate that structure,” said Battalion Chief, Keith Trojanowski. “Our concern is as we ventilate, we bring it in and out of its explosive range and so that has to be done with some caution so we are preparing for that ventilation process now.”

The house has been ventilated and people were able to return to their homes.

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