KUSA — Twenty one years ago, there was an explosion one block away from Tuesday's natural gas explosion in Denver's Baker neighborhood.
The explosion happened at 5th Avenue and Santa Fe Drive on Nov. 22, 1996 and leveled a vacant uniform company, injuring five people.
Work crews were repairing the roof at the time of the blast. The Denver Fire Department later determined that a ceiling mounted heater in the building mixed with the natural gas heat.
A duplex less than a mile away from the 1996 fire also exploded in 2004. Nine members of a family were taken to the hospital.
It's unclear what caused that explosion.
Tuesday's explosion happened at 4th Avenue and Santa Fe Drive and injured 10 people, one critically.
A spokesperson for the Denver Fire Department mentioned these explosions during a media briefing when he called Tuesday's incident the worst one that Denver has seen in 10 years.
We have no indication now that these three explosions are related.
