UPDATE: Eighteen hours later, hundreds of people remain evacuated from a six-square-block area of San Pablo after fire crews found a shed behind a home filled with dangerous chemicals.
Firefighters described the shed, which sits in the backyard of a house on Stanton Avenue near Giant Highway, as being piled high with boxes full of volatile chemicals.
The homeowner’s brother reported the smell of gas coming from the shed at around noon, according to Captain Chris Toler with the Contra Costa Fire Protection District, which led to fire crews going to check it out.Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter. “They saw hundreds of boxes of hazardous materials in various forms, various containers, various boxes,” said Toler about what crews encountered once inside. “Some in good condition, some in degraded condition that they could not even identify what actually was in that container and/or box.”
They then called out two hazmat teams, along with the Walnut Creek bomb squad. A shelter-in-place was initially put into effect, which soon became a mandatory evacuation for hundreds of people in a six square block area around the shelf.
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