Authorities in Loudoun County, Virginia, confirmed that a house explosion had occurred late Friday night, terrifying residents and alerting WTOP.
Footage from 7News and Chopper7's WTOP news partners showed firefighters and paramedics searching through the debris of a home on Silver Ridge Drive in Sterling.
Reports of injuries are currently unknown.
At about 9pm, social media users were still trying to understand what had happened, with one Stirling resident saying: “Now a huge boom shook the whole house. I ran outside upstairs with my flashlight and found all the neighbors doing the same. Apparently the house exploded in the nearby street. .”
The Sterling Volunteer Fire Company said they received a call around 7:38 a.m. about a gas leak on Silver Ridge Drive. A building fire was reported at 8:25 p.m., and an ambulance was dispatched at about the same time.
“At 8:25 p.m., a loud explosion was felt in the Cascade/Starling area,” the listener wrote to WTOP. “It shook so much that all the houses shook and we all thought a tree had hit each house.”
WTOP listeners as far away as Montgomery County, Maryland, reported hearing a loud thud at about the same time the Loudoun County home went up in flames.
“It shook the houses 24 miles from Germantown/Gaithersburg/Rockville,” another listener wrote.
This is a developing story. Stay with WTOP for the latest information.
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