SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Multiple underground explosions sent flames into the air in San Francisco’s financial district Thursday morning, prompting street closures and a shelter-in-place order as firefighters responded to several affected underground vaults. Surveillance video captured flames erupting as people ran for cover. Additional video showed people seeking safety inside a nearby building. San Francisco worker Ibrahim Mihtar described seeing fire coming from a PG&E vault. “I talked to the security guard and saw that something was happening in the PGE hole and the fire broke out, a big one!” Mihtar said.MORE: Vault fire in SF’s Western Addition neighborhood leaves power near 2 schools out. ABC7 Eyewitness News cameras also captured the sounds of multiple explosions Thursday morning. The San Francisco Fire Department blocked off a six-block area and issued a shelter-in-place order. The order was lifted five hours after the explosions. “Crews arrived and noticed smoke was traveling to different vaults. There were three vaults involved,” said San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Bruno Bovo. The closures prevented many workers from reaching their offices. “Everything is locked down, so I just migrated here and then I saw that everything was cordoned off and I can’t get into my office,” said Christiaan Bassig, who works in San Francisco. PG&E confirmed that the explosion was caused by an underground low-voltage cable. A company that was undergoing renovations on the block lost power. When asked what caused the incident, PG&E spokeswoman Tamar Sarkissian said the utility would know more after examining the equipment. “We’re going to learn more once we get a chance to look at the equipment and investigate. We know what type of equipment it is, what that low-voltage wire is. We saw something burning,” Sarkissian said. All PG&E equipment in the area is underground. About two weeks earlier, the utility responded to another vault fire near the Salesforce Tower. San Francisco Supervisor Danny Sauter, who represents the district, expressed concern about PG&E’s response considering a power outage in December that affected more than 100,000 PG&E customers and led to a hearing. “This time they’re taking it seriously,” Sauter said. When asked what he planned to do, Sauter said, “Our plan is to hold our feet to the fire and make sure they know we’re watching. I would say rent payers and residents of San Francisco are pretty fed up with PG&E.” Sauter said he is considering holding a hearing to ask PG&E about how often its underground equipment is inspected.Copyright © 2026 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.
