Woman survives house explosion in Birmingham

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. (FOX 2) - A Birmingham woman is lucky to be alive after her house exploded Memorial Day while she was still inside. 

It happened Monday around 9:30 a.m. on Chapin Street near Woodward. 

"If she stood anywhere else in that house she wouldn't have made it," a neighbor Shawn Scott told us. "She had an angel next to her for sure." 

Fire and EMS crews arrived within two minutes of a call about a fire to find the homeowner already outside and pretty much unhurt.

"It's a miracle. It really is a miracle," Wells said. 

The homeowner tells FOX 2 she'd been staying with her elderly parents to take care of them for the last two weeks and stopped at her home to pick up her mail and set a timer for her lights. But she says when she flipped on a light switch she heard and certainly felt an explosion. 

The homeowner says it took her a moment to realize what was happening but within seconds she was able to crawl out of a window onto a pile of bricks. That's when she was able to look at the damage.

"The walls were physically blown out," Scott told us. 

Fire crews put out a few small fires and Consumers Energy shut off the gas, the likely culprit. But Wells says they aren't exactly sure quite yet what caused this. 

"It could be from an appliance. It could be from anything," he said. 

The homeowner says she's incredibly grateful that her two pets were with her parents and even the neighbor's car was parked just a few inches out of the way from a pile of falling bricks. 

Neighbors and firefighters are impressed by the woman's positivity, even though the inside of her home is totaled. She walked away with only a couple of scratches.