Johnstown, CO – Investigators from multiple agencies are examining an explosion that destroyed a house in Johnstown on Thursday.
Six people were asleep in the home on E. County Road 16, which marks a border between Larimer and Weld counties, when their home exploded in the early morning hours. The home is less than a quarter-mile east of Interstate 25 and Johnson’s Corner.
First responders arrived on scene shortly before 3:30 a.m. All six people were able to escape uninjured, but responders declared their home a total loss.
Firefighters from both Front Range Fire Rescue and Loveland Fire Rescue Authority responded due to the severity of the damage.
Because everyone was asleep at the time of the explosion, investigators were not able to pinpoint the explosion’s origin within the home immediately, according to LFRA battalion chief Eric Klaas.
LFRA is leading the investigation into the explosion, with assistance from the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office; the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and AmeriGas Propane, which supplied propane to the family’s home.
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The Johnstown home was not supplied with natural gas, Klaas said.
The six residents were connected with the American Red Cross because the explosion displaced them. A family friend created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money on their behalf.
“They are a such caring and giving family willing to help others,” the fundraising page reads in part. “I have seen this family go through rough times and now they need (our) help. They have lost everything that was in their house.”
Two other high-profile explosions have injured or killed residents in the region this year.
Investigators blamed an April 17 fatal explosion in a Firestone home on odorless, unrefined natural gas leaking from a nearby flow line. Two people were killed and one person badly burned in the April explosion.
Colorado regulators began drafting new rules in September for the state’s flow lines in response to the explosion.