NE Third Street was closed for several hours Tuesday north of Greenwood Avenue after a construction crew in the alley between the Shell Station and Baskin-Robbins hit a high-pressure gas line, causing a leak.

The road was reopened to traffic just after 2 p.m. after a crew from Cascade Natural Gas stopped the gas leak. Firefighters and police were nearby during the incident, and traffic was disrupted for blocks.

Firefighters responded to the incident at about 9:50 a.m., after workers from High Desert Utilities inadvertently sliced through a 4-inch natural gas line with a tapered saw designed to cut through asphalt.

Battalion Chief Dave Howe described the incident as a major gas leak; the line involved is roughly four times larger than a residential gas line, he said.

“That’s a tremendous amount of gas,” Howe said.

Howe said the nearby Shell gas station, Baskin-Robbins and Taco Bell were evacuated, while residents in the area were asked to “shelter in place,” avoid the use of any open flames and refrain from operating vehicles or machinery. He said students at Red Wagon Preschool, located at 352 NE Kearney Ave., were bused to another location.

The fire department brought in two engines and blocked access to NE Third Street. The Oregon Department of Transportation, Bend Public Works and Bend Police Department shut down several streets in the blocks surrounding the leak for about four hours.

Howe said Pacific Power quickly shut off electricity in the area to minimize the chance of an explosion. Still, Howe said the fire department was concerned about gas getting trapped in one of the nearby structures, given the number of nearby businesses and the presence of an air inversion in Central Oregon that made it more difficult for the gas to escape into the atmosphere.

“(Gas leaks) can turn bad really quickly,” he said.

Gas company personnel dug up the line on both sides and installed valves to shut it down, according to the fire department. Once workers from Cascade Natural Gas determined that there was no exposure risk, the businesses in the area were given permission to reopen.

Howe said the construction crew had marked the road prior to beginning the project, and it was unclear how workers hit this particular gas line.

He emphasized the importance of knowing the location of gas lines before beginning a construction process by calling 811.