On Wednesday, February 27th, the Grant Grove structural fire brigade was called to respond to the Montecito Sequoia Lodge, located on adjacent Forest Service lands, to deal with an explosion and fire that occurred in an employee dormitory. The explosion flattened the two-story employee shower house/dorm building, threw debris (some pieces as large as half-sheets of plywood) hundreds of feet from the site, and left the remains on fire. Rangers determined that the burning remains posed no exposure danger to adjacent structures because of the snow levels (exceeding six feet). The area was secured and the scene turned over to USFS and Tulare County Fire units. Rangers treated one employee for minor injuries sustained during the explosion. The employee said that he’d been sleeping in his bed in a room on the second story when the explosion occurred and awoke to the building collapsing. He said that he “rode the building” as the second story fell into the first story, then crawled through the rubble into the snow. Had the explosion occurred just a half hour earlier, other employees likely would have been injured, as several were using the showers and preparing to go to work. Tulare County Fire and USFS are conducting the investigation.
