MCCALL, Idaho — One man is dead and a teenage girl is in critical condition after a house was completely leveled by an explosion in McCall.
The blast happened at approximately 4:15 p.m. on Sunday in a neighborhood near the McCall Golf Club.
"It was so massive, it was huge," said Ian Williams who witnessed the explosion. "It was like a war zone, I have never seen anything like it."
Williams was walking around the golf course with his family when he heard and felt the powerful blast.
"I would say it was probably about 150 feet up in the air, it was giant mushroom cloud fireball," Williams said.
Without thinking, Williams ran toward the explosion.
"The house had been completely demolished," Williams said. "Both houses on either side were also very damaged, the doors had been blown open and all the windows blown out. I heard a woman screaming, so I started climbing on the debris as close as I could get. The police officer next to me actually pulled me back because I was going to start climbing down and he said I would start melting and catching on fire."
The screaming was coming from a 15-year-old girl buried shoulder-deep in debris.
"She was screaming, that's how we knew someone was down there," said McCall Fire Captain Jake Class. "There really wasn't any house around her she was basically sitting in the center of the rubble of what was left, and we were able to get her up out of there."
Class and another fireman were able to rescue the teen who is now in critical condition at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise.
An adult man was found deceased amongst the rubble.
Aside from the one home being reduced to debris, two adjacent homes suffered significant damage.
"We had timbers from this house actually penetrate the ceiling and roofing on both houses adjacent to them," Van Middendorp said.
An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the state fire marshal were both on scene.
At this time fire crews aren't ruling out any possibilities as to what triggered the explosion.