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Crime & Safety

Explosion Injures Man, Evacuates Neighborhood

Residents are evacuated when an electrical box explodes near a man, badly burning him and sparking a fire.

An electrical box exploded today, injuring a man and causing a neighborhood to be evacuated.

The explosion happened around 7:30 p.m. at a house in the 27000 block of Dayton Lane, according to Riverside County Fire Department Captain Ty Davis.

The victim, Bob Bartholomew, 56, stepped on the lid to a utility box outside his home, and it caved in. The electrical equipment inside exploded, setting his body on fire, Bartholomew said.

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When firefighters arrived, they found Bartholomew standing outside his home, and smoke was rising from the utility box, Davis said.

Electricity then started to arc, and firefighters evacuated 10 of the surrounding homes.

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A fire burned in the box for about an hour. Firefighters tried to put it out with chemical agents without success. The fire was extinguished only when Southern California Edison cut the power to the neighborhood.

Bartholomew was doing some cleaning in his front yard with his wife, Chonna, when the incident happened, he said.

"That's when I inadvertently stepped on the electrical box, sending flames up my legs and up to my face catching my hair on my legs on fire,” he said.

The victim refused to go to the hospital, despite the firefighters’ advice, Davis said. “The patient suffered from minor burns on less than three percent of his lower extremities, and he refused to go to the hospital.”
The homes were evacuated because electricity can surge back into the nearby homes causing other fires, Davis said.

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