At 4:17 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 24th, the Manhattan Fire Department was dispatched to 1812 Fair Ln. for a report of a gas line that had been hit. Upon arrival, crews found an 8-inch natural gas line that a utility crew backhoe struck while jackhammering concrete. Crews evacuated two people from a nearby business, and the other employees at adjacent businesses had already evacuated. A total number of 10 firefighters responded to the scene. No injuries were reported.
Fort Riley Blvd. was closed in both directions at Martin Luther King Blvd., as well as the 1800 block of Fair Ln, until the leak was stopped. Kansas Gas Service responded to the scene and brought in a crew to isolate the leak. The leak was stopped around 1:00 a.m. The Union Pacific railroad tracks were also shut down until around 10:00 p.m.
The Manhattan Fire Department is an ISO Class I, career fire department, serving the City of Manhattan from five fire stations. The department provides fire, emergency medical first response, technician-level hazardous material response, and technical rescue including vehicle extrication, trench, high and low angle, surface water, structural collapse, and wide area search. The department serves as a Type I regional hazardous materials response team through the State Fire Marshal primarily serving 8 counties in the surrounding area. MFD is part of Northeast Task Force 2, a search and rescue/water rescue team with other area departments, and is tasked to cover 23 counties for urban search and rescue response.
