That sort of thing happened about 10 years ago near me in the local city of San Bruno, CA. A major gas company distribution line that passed through one of the town's subdivisions blew up and destroyed many homes in a huge fireball. The company, PG&E (what I like to call Pacific, Graft and Explosion), was found to be at fault for not maintaining their pipeline and had to pay many millions of dollars to rebuild the entire neighborhood and to compensate its affected residents. And it is still being rebuilt years later.