MONROE — The Monroe Fire Department responded earlier this week to another hit on a gas line and evacuated surrounding homes as a precaution.

It’s at least the fourth time since May that firefighters have been called out for a gas leak after a work crew accidentally hit a gas line, but Fire Chief Dan Smits said the crews and circumstances have been different each time.

What the incidents share is a challenge in locating gas lines.

“There’s a lot of replacement of gas lines going on, and street projects, and it’s an old community. And sometimes in old communities the location of gas lines is not always well known,” Smits said.

Older paper records are not always reliable, so crews rely on new technology — which also doesn’t find everything.

It’s a “constant challenge,” he said. As communities bury more utility lines, like fiber optic cables, “we’re going to continue to run into this.”

“Everybody’s trying to do their best,” Smits said.

The most recent gas leak that firefighters responded to happened at about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4, on 18th Avenue at 7th Street. A city crew hit the line. 

The leak was quickly controlled by We Energies and homes in about a block radius were evacuated 20 to 30 minutes, Smits said.

Previously, firefighters responded after a landscaping crew hit a gas line on a residential property at 2nd Avenue and 27th Street on Aug. 8; after construction workers hit and severed a gas line on 18th Avenue at 9th Street on July 29; and after a We Energies crew hit on a main gas line in the 600 block of 18th Avenue on May 3.