A home exploded Monday morning in Tiffin.
It happened just after 10 a.m. on Harrison Street.
The Tiffin Fire Chief says the building will be demolished. It's a rental home that the owner was rehabbing in preparation for new tenants moving in.
No one was inside when the home exploded. It was likely caused by a natural gas leak. Painters and neighbors say they're lucky to be alive.
This home on Harrison now looks like a doll house.
You can see inside into the upstairs bathroom where the shower and toilet remain intact.
The home exploded Monday morning blowing off both the east and west walls.
"It felt like something drove into the side of my house," says Jeremy Espinoza who lives next door.
One of the walls crushed Espinoza's car.
"I'm fine, I'm just a little shook up, that's all," says Espinoza.
The explosion sent parts of the house flying in all directions. Some debris landed on Andy Glick's roof.
"Dirt and a little bit of this stuff here is all the way down there. We're probably 75 yards away," says Glick.
Tiffin Fire Chief William Ennis, Jr., says the explosion remains under investigation by the State Fire Marshal's Office, but he believes a natural gas leak may have caused a downstairs furnace to burst.
No one was living in the rental home.
"The renters had moved out, so they were preparing the house to re-rent and they were doing painting and stuff. Painters were due to show up any time. They hadn't been here yet," says Chief Ennis.
"I'm a very lucky lady," says Merilyn Shumway, one of the folks renovating the home.
She and Jeff Husk were heading there to paint Monday morning, but the home exploded before they arrived.
"I'm a little shaken up," says Husk. "There would've been three of us in there today. "
"They're going to tear it down and that's just the way that it has to be, but nobody's dead so that's what's important," says Shumway.
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