It seems that catching houses in the act of exploding is something those popular doorbell cams are really good at. They seem to observe as many of those as they do porch pirates. This one caught a pricey home in the phoenix suburbs on the slopes of Camelback Mountain in the act.
Doorbell catches the blast
Fire and police investigators are still sifting through the rubble of what’s left of an upscale “multi-million-dollar home” near 36th St. and Lincoln Drive. Doorbell cameras captured the moment the house “exploded into pieces on Saturday.”
The blast occurred just after 4:30 in the afternoon on February 5. They found a propane tank inside the wreckage but aren’t calling that the cause of explosion yet.
Thankfully, nobody was in the home at the time of the explosion and nobody was hurt.
News reports note that the explosion captured by the doorbell cam happened in a place where hikers park before venturing up iconic Piestewa Peak, which locals continue to insist on calling Squaw Peak, instead. Officials note the home “nestled in the mountains of the Phoenix Mountain Preserves” was “leveled in a matter of seconds.”
Officially, the report notes, “Ring doorbell cameras captured the moment, at 4:36 p.m. Saturday.” Neighbors are still shaken up. “We were just sitting in the living room, and it was like this huge explosion.”
Jeff Buel owns the house next-door. Several homes in the surrounding area “were damaged and lost electricity when power lines caught fire.” Along with a trail of broken windows down the street, “glass, insulation, plywood, and steel were littered for blocks.”
NEW: Saturday at 4:36pm a multi-million dollar home off 36th Street & Lincoln Drive in Phoenix, Arizona explodes and is completely destroyed.
Neighbors share doorbell camera with me capturing the moment it happened.
*Note: video is slowed down | @abc15 pic.twitter.com/SiozlRFiFf
— Christine Stanwood (@stanwoodreports) February 6, 2022
Not natural gas
The obvious prime suspect for the doorbell documented blast is standard natural gas lines. That would account for the damage. Nope. That wasn’t it. Southwest Gas confirms “there was no natural gas to the house from the company.”
No matter what caused the blast, Buel says it was a “close call” for him. “We didn’t know. We thought it was maybe our garage. But we quickly went out and then our neighbor across the street was waving her arms, that house just blew up.”
Heroically, Buel and his son “ran to the perimeter as close as we could get.” They dialed 911 as they ran before “yelling into the house.” He “didn’t want to go inside. We didn’t know if there was another explosion or something. So we were just yelling, ‘Is anybody in there? Can you hear me?’ And we didn’t get a response.”
It was later verified “the owners were not there. So very blessed.” The doorbell video will make quite an impression when the owners get back.
After every doorbell in the posh neighborhood got an eyeful, it took Tempe, Glendale, Scottsdale, and Phoenix Fire departments to put out the blaze. They worked all the way through the night.
“Six homes were damaged,” Captain Todd Keller with the Phoenix Fire Department relates. “Four to five of them were evacuated. Throughout the night we had a fire engine on standby as we call a fire watch.” As an added bonus for folks who just can’t get enough of exploding houses, this iconic scene from Zabriskie Point depicts (the model of) another home on the northern outskirts of Phoenix going up – done by the pros, not some cheesy doorbell.