Plum has history of house explosions

There have been at least two previous house explosions in Plum since 2008, both in the Holiday Park neighborhood.

The most recent was April 22, 2022, at 5021 Hialeah Drive. A couple and their three sons who lived there survived.

As of September, the cause of the explosion had not been released.

Matt Brown, chief of the Allegheny County Department of Emergency Services, said in an email Saturday that the investigation has been lengthy because of forensic testing of natural gas lines and appliances and follow-up interviews. He said all of that requires extensive planning and coordination.

A March 2008 house explosion on Mardi Gras Drive was eerily similar in its destruction to Saturday’s incident on Rustic Ridge Drive.

In that incident, when the house at 171 Mardi Gras exploded, two others were destroyed and 11 were damaged.

A grandfather, Richard Leith, 64, of Trafford, was killed and his granddaughter, Gianna, then 4, suffered a broken leg.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that a 2-inch natural gas distribution pipeline had been hit by a backhoe when a sewer line was replaced five years prior in 2003, stripping the pipeline of its protective coating and making it susceptible to corrosion and failure.

Holiday Park fire Chief James Sims said he has responded to six house explosions in Plum in his decades as a firefighter.

He called Saturday’s on Rustic Ridge Drive “the worst I have even seen.”