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Underground Vault Fires In San Francisco Financial Dist. Extinguished

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- At least two fires in underground vaults were quickly extinguished Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco's Financial District, fire and PG&E officials said.

Firefighters responded at 2:23 p.m. to reports of smoke and flames coming from underneath a maintenance hole cover at 505 Montgomery St., a fire official said.

The force of the explosion popped a manhole cover,

"It was bouncing around. It flew up a couple of feet and went down," said SFFD Batallion Chief Marty Ross.

Smoke rising from a second manhole a few blocks away at Montgomery and Front forced closures for another investigation.

PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said no outages have been reported in the area.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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