The San José Fire Department (SJFD) arrived on the scene of a fire that started in a Victorian house at the intersection of Fourth Street and E St. James St in Downtown San José on Monday afternoon.
SJFD battalion chief Robert Culbertson said the cause of the fire is unknown.
Eileen Johnson, San José citizen and witness of the scene, said she drove past the scene around noon.
Johnson said she has lived in San José for 13 years and thinks the house is about 70 years old.
“I always look to the sky to see if I see a fire and I saw the black smoke and I told my passenger, ‘Give me the details,’ ” Johnson said.
Culbertson said it will take some time for the fire department to find out what caused the fire because the scene was unsafe.
He said SJFD has to determine what potential factors may have caused the fire, and they cannot do that until they are able to get inside the building.
“It's gonna be very difficult for us to determine (the) cause on this, because it's so dangerous when we can't get in there,” Culbertson said.
He said the firefighters found one person inside the house to the right of the fire and were able to get them out before the house was destroyed.
Culbertson also said the house to the left of the one caught on fire was fully occupied and successfully saved by the fire department.
“I just like to commend the fire department on a good job that they've done,” Johnson said.
Another witness at the scene, Kin Chan, an aviation senior at San José State, said he saw a cloud of black smoke as he was walking out of one of his classes in the Industrial Studies Building at around 11:50-11:55 a.m.
Chan said he saw what looked like an explosion 10 to 15 minutes after noon when he saw a crane shoot water towards the power lines in the area.
“They (the firefighters) might not have considered that the water is shooting through the telephone lines (and) would have caught sparks, so there was like a boom for a split second,” Chan said.
Culbertson said Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) shut off the power for over 400 residents in the area of the fire.
He said there was unusual activity coming from the power lines that posed a safety threat to the firefighters on the scene and passersby.
Culbertson also said he did not see any explosion or sparking of any kind when at the scene.
“They're (PG&E) gonna go ahead and try to restore it as soon as they can safely get close to that building,” he said. “And rule out that there's any kind of utility involvement at all.”
