CLEVELAND — While there are still a lot of unanswered questions, News 5 sat down with the Cleveland Fire Department for the first time to hear what they believe could have caused the Garden Valley apartment explosion back in June that killed a father and left multiple people injured.
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“We believe that it’s a natural gas explosion from the facts that we have two firsthand witnesses that tell us that they smelled natural gas. It’s logical that what they’re telling us is accurate,” said Cleveland Division of Fire Captain Bob Zimmerer.
News 5 asked Zimmerer if it was safe to say that was the cause.
“We believe that thing. We have not been able to put together evidence that will without a doubt prove that. We haven’t been able to put together a failure,” said Zimmerer.
We then asked when investigators suspected the cause to be potentially related to a natural gas explosion.
“Early on, during just the site examination,” said Zimmerer. “The level of an explosion that it was is one indicator.”
“Why could you not just give bits and pieces of ‘We think it’s this, but we’re still doing this?’ I guess (I’m asking) why the delay up until now,” asked News 5’s Remi Murrey.
“Well, we have released basically updates to the incident,” said Zimmerer.
Despite Zimmerer’s claim, Cleveland City Councilman Richard Starr sent a letter to Mayor Justin Bibb Monday, which stated his office had not received updates from the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Arson Division concerning the cause of the explosion, among other calls for transparency.
“I would like to be able to find out what initially happened with the fire explosion,” said Starr of Cleveland’s Ward 5.
“When we were made aware of the letter, we were able to put together a current update on where the investigation is and what we’re waiting on,” said Zimmerer. “Until we know that we don’t have an incendiary incident, we want to retain what we have.”
At this time, Zimmerer said investigators are still waiting on test results from a private consulting firm that is working for both Enbridge Gas and under the supervision of the Public Utilities Commission.
Zimmerer hopes this testing will be completed by the end of the year to be one step closer to seeing if there was a failure prior to the explosion.
But it’s not clear when those final reports will be released.
“Sometimes, we can’t come up with answer. It’s frustrating. But maybe we’ll have something when we get these final lab reports. But very likely it could still remain undetermined if they don’t find anything definitive,” said Zimmerer.
