A wall of fire roared through a block of Venice Boulevard at Bagley Avenue in the Venice area destroying businesses and apartments and leaving at least two dead and 26 injured. Large fireballs were hurled and thick black smoke billowed 300 feet into the air, when an excavation machine on a state street-widening project struck a buried Standard Oil Co. 8-inch pipeline. The gasoline, under 600 pounds of pressure per square inch, shot up like a fountain and formed a mist; then came the explosion. A full investigation was promised by Caltrans, which had contracted with a private construction firm for the street-widening work. Photograph caption dated June 17, 1976 reads, "Firemen battle huge gas-fed fireball at height of the blaze. Witness Mark Sparks of Hollywood was just behind the gutted car in the picture when the light turned red and he stopped. A second later the explosion erupted but Sparks was spared. He reported seeing men in burned car run from the vehicle, their clothes blazing."
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;29 x 36 cm. Photographic prints
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