By: Valentina Guo
According to the authorities, two women were killed in a fire near the 200 block of Marina Drive resulting in an explosion of a 35-foot (11-meter) pleasure or power boat on a harbor in Long Beach, California. Two other men and another woman were severely injured and hospitalized because of burns. All of them were/are in their 60s.
Smoke was everywhere. In the air, on the boat, in the water, on the beach, everywhere. The fire erupted around 5:15 pm, the Long Beach Fire Department said.
People on nearby boats heard and felt the powerful blast. According to NBC News, “Cory Valdes was on another boat nearby when he heard the explosion and then saw flames consume the vessel.”
“It was so loud, it shook us,” he told the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “It went up so fast — you are talking ten, fifteen seconds and it was fully engulfed.”
Of the people who were on the pleasure boat engulfed in flames, one man was able to get off quickly, while another man and woman jumped off into the water.
Valdes and others within the area made an effort to put out the first using a hose, until a fire boat arrived with a water cannon at around 5:17. They struggled to find the remaining two women.
“The fire required multiple land-based and marine-based resources to extinguish the fire,” the Long Beach Fire Department said in a post on Facebook. “The fire has been extinguished, and resources continue to operate at the incident.”
With the help of the Orange County Fire Authority, the Long Beach firefighters were able to put the fire out, but the boat was destroyed. ABC7 says “Investigators are examining the charred vessel to determine what went wrong.”
“Initial reports indicated they were in the process of doing some type of refueling operation, or had just completed a fueling operation,” Long Beach Fire Department Captain Jake Heflin said. “That’s obviously all part of the ongoing investigation.”
No firefighters were injured, and the remains of the boat were taken to an isolation dock to prevent environmental damage.