SF Firefighters Shocked By Rooftop Solar Panels While Fighting House Fire
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Two firefighters were shocked, apparently by a rooftop solar panel, while trying to extinguish a one-alarm fire at a home in San Francisco's Bayview District Wednesday afternoon, a fire department spokeswoman said.
One of the firefighters was taken to a hospital to be checked out after experiencing numbness in his arms, while the other remained working at the scene, San Francisco fire spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said.
The firefighters were at what was initially reported as a roof fire at 1:37 p.m. at a home in the 1100 block of Hollister Avenue, Talmadge said.
The firefighters were battling the blaze from an adjacent roof and said they did not touch the solar panel, but still got shocked somehow.
"It's possible that the solar panels, we had water up on the roof, there could have been electrical coming off the solar panels into the water which is a great conduit and the firefighter was standing in water," Batallion Chief Michael Thompson said.
Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames by 2:21 p.m., Talmadge said.
PG&E crews were responding this afternoon to shut off power to the home and try to determine what happened, she said.
Residents of the home had started a fire in the fireplace at the home and the flames apparently spread somehow from the chimney to the roof and attic, Talmadge said.
No other information about the blaze was immediately available.
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