33-year-old Angelic Cisneros, the woman who blew out the windows of her fiancé's Ingleside apartment while cooking up drugs in the bathroom, has been arrested for five felonies, including one count of possession of marijuana for sale and two counts of child endangerment. Unfortunately, the police have yet to give the tabloid-loving public what they want and release which drug, exactly, they think Ms. Cisneros was trying to cook up in her bathroom. more ›

A home near the intersection of Capitol and Ocean Avenues in the Ingleside neighborhood sort of blew up last night around 9 p.m. sending a woman and a 12-year-old to the hospital with burns. A third person, the woman's fiancé who lives in the home, was also present, but said he had gone out to his car to retrieve something when the explosion occurred. But it gets curiouser... more ›

Today at around 1:50 pm, there was a manhole cover explosion on Folsom Street at Harriet Street. Alert SF notes: "Folsom Street is closed between 6th and 7th Streets. Harriet Street is closed between Howard and Harrison Streets. Please avoid the area." more ›

The results of the federal probe into the San Bruno gas line explosion of last September were finally presented yesterday, and the NTSB has placed all the blame for the tragedy on PG&E and their general incompetence. Efforts to shift blame by PG&E to things like a nearby sewer line project disrupting the pipe, or to a now-defunct company called Consolidated Western Steel who supplied some pipe, like 50 years ago, to the company, were totally dismissed. NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said PG&E "exploited weaknesses in a lax system of oversight, and regulatory agencies that placed a blind trust in operators to the detriment of public safety." more ›

We're hearing reports of a manhole cover explosion happening in the city's Union Square area. KCBS tweets: "Black smoke reported at Post & Grant in SF, reports of a manhole cover explosion." more ›

SFist received news that a car exploded on Montgomery Street near the BART Station around Noon today. Check out some video of the billowing black smoke from the scene. At least two very loud and scary booms were heard, and the fire department responded quickly. more ›

At a gas station in San Bruno, a surveillance video caught Thursday's natural gas explosion and fire on film. "You can see one man getting ready to fill up his car when something catches his attention," notes NBC Bay Area, who first aired the footage. "That something was a huge fireball caused by an explosion of a 30-inch pipe." more ›

After Thursday's natural gas pipeline explosion, which displaced many San Bruno citizens, several residents will be allowed to return home at noon today. more ›

A natural gas line explosion erupted in San Bruno on Thursday at Skyline Boulevard and Sneath Lane, sending a continuous fireball into the sky that destroyed 32 homes and killed four six residents. The massive explosion, which was heard for miles, was due to a gas line that... more ›

As most news orgs are reporting this morning, the official fatality count from last night's gas main explosion and ongoing fire in San Bruno is 4 people, with 52 suffering injuries that required hospitalization, including 4 firefighters who suffered smoke inhalation. That count is expected to rise, however, as search and rescue efforts continue, and as the most badly burned are treated at area hospitals. more ›

Speaking of explosions, two manhole covers exploded Friday morning in San Francisco's Financial District. CBS 5 notes: "Reports indicated two manholes exploded near the area of Sutter and Montgomery Streets around 7:30 a.m. Smoke was reportedly coming from the manholes, and a power outage was reported in the area." A reason for the exploding manholes has yet to be determined. more ›

According to CBS 5, "a huge explosion happened in the San Bruno area and huge flames can be seen...the flames are near Crestmore and San Ramon Avenues." The fire has torched multiple homes; an entire neighborhood is on fire. A least halk a dozen homes are ablaze. more ›

There was an explosion this morning on the Vermilion Oil Rig 380, 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast, west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon blast. 13 workers were rescued by the Coast Guard, with only one seriously injured. The rig is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy, and it's unclear whether it was a drilling rig or production platform. [CNN, NPR] more ›

We're getting reports of a loud explosion and major siren action in the Financial District. SF Appeal is saying the location is the Le Meridien Hotel at Battery and Sansome. more ›

"Terrible Explosion and Loss of Life in San Francisco" roared the headline in the Placer Herald describing what happened 144 years ago today after stored nitroglycerin boxes at the Wells Fargo and Co. office exploded on California Street, causing widespread destruction. more ›

An underground vault fire and/or an explosion caused a power outage Sunday evening starting at around 6:30 p.m. which affected 1,400 PG&E customers in SOMA and shut the lights on the Bay Bridge. ABC7 also lost power in their studio momentarily during their 6 p.m. broadcast. The lights on the bridge remained off most of the evening, but there was no reported interruption in traffic flow. The explosion/fire took place at 2nd and Harrison, and the cause isn't known. Looks like it's underground explosion season again! more ›

Oh yikes, folks. According to our increasingly favorite Twitter account to follow, Emergency_In_SF, they've got word (via timmysanfran) that there's a fire, possibly caused by an explosion, at Market (near Fourth Street) next to the massive Ross store. more ›

Last night around 2AM near downtown Oakland, an empty U.S. Postal Service truck slammed into another truck that had pulled over along I-880 in order to assist a woman who was having car trouble. The postal truck jack-knifed as it collided with the other truck, ruptured its own fuel tank, and exploded in a massive inferno which left one of the driver's injured and a dog in the woman's car dead. As KTVU reports, this caused a massive early-morning backup and two lanes on 880 remained closed into the commuting hours. Luckily, unlike the last enormous big rig inferno in that part of the world, this one does not appear to have melted an entire roadway. more ›

Instead of busting another myth, Mythbusters accidentally busted residents' windows in Yolo Country yesterday. The locally-produced Discovery Channel show, it seems, was attempting to literally "knock the socks off" a mannequin via the ignition of 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate. (!?) But the boom was just too big. According to KCRA 3, "the explosion was so big it shook the town of Esparto, knocking [Sherril] Stephens off her couch and breaking her front window." Resident Paul Williams said, "It felt like a house blew up, straight up." The reason the public and school were not notified of the explosion beforehand, as Esparto Fire Department Chief Barry Burns explains it, is because 'Mythbusters is supposed to be a really popular show. Everybody would have been out there. We would have had to cancel it because it would have been too dangerous." Aside from Stephen's sore bottom, no one was was injured due to the explosion. And no word yet whether said socks were literally knocked off. more ›

Police are viewing the blast that shook San Francisco's Sunnyside neighborhood Monday night as an accident. Although illegal fireworks were found in the house's garage and rumors swirled about possible mischief, police still aren't sure what caused the explosion. The arson team at the scene ruled out any criminal activity. The blast - which blew off all but the top two steps on the staircase leading up to the second floor, as well as much of the lower front of the building - sent two residents to the hospital. Both are listed in critical condition. more ›

The police have ruled out electrical and natural gas as causes of last night's 108 Congo explosion. The front of the house was blown out (including the garage, where the explosion originated) and five people were injured, including two men inside the house and a 2-year-old who lives next door--his window was shattered and glass hit him in the face. more ›

Sunnyside, famous for its collapsing houses, falling trees, naughty neighbors, and proximity to Daly City, was the site of an explosion that rocked the hood at around 7:45 Monday night. The explosion happened in the garage of 108 Congo, which four young brothers who "fix cars" (according to a neighbor) called home. Several other people share the rest of the house. While there are some residents still in the hospital, no life-threatening injuries have been reported. If you're in the area, go say hi to SFist favorite, Claudine Wong. (She's wearing leather today.) more ›

Oh my, word. Did you hear it? We received a few emails mentioning it, but NBC 11 confirms: more ›

Offices in Capitol Hill received a manila envelope with a letter claiming responsibility for today's bombing of a landmark military recruiting station in Times Square, NYC. Our parent site, Gothamist, tells us that "WNBC reports that the letters, which arrived today, included a photo of the Army recruiting center 'before it was bombed and...the words 'We did it.'" Which group is claiming responsibility, exactly, remains to be known. more ›

Earlier this morning, Forensics Analytical Lab in Hayward called the fire department for help because they'd spilled a bunch of picric acid. more ›

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. more ›

Transformers.... more than meets the eye! Not only robots in disguise, but also the source of today's MUNI irritation. Curse you, Decepticons! more ›

As discussed in the SFist Contributes tips page, what people heard in Ingleside Heights early yesterday morning was a mysterious car explosion. Witnesses saw a man park a car, get out of the car and into someone else's, and then the parked car burst into flames. Around 7:00 a.m, another car mysteriously exploded, this time in the Tenderloin at Ellis and Taylor. The two incidents aren't thought to be related -- but how weird. more ›

Friend of SFist Charlie Anders reminds us that her nifty and unusual spoken-word group, Writers With Drinks, will be experiencing yet another stupendous explosion of literary greatness this Saturday, the 9th, from 7:30 to 9:30 at The Make Out Room. Presenters include: more ›

There was an early-morning explosion just before 7 a.m. in an apartment building on Mission Street near Geneva, in the Ingleside Excelsior neighborhood. The explosion blew out the windows of the dry-cleaning business located on the bottom floor, spraying glass all over Mission Street. The authorities are still investigating but note that they've been called to that address for drug-related activities before. more ›