A similar incident happened in Rochester NY a few years ago. Fire was so hot, it destroyed a block of homes from outright burning down to melting vinyl sidings off. Took them months to raze the neighborhood.
I used to sometimes drive through a little town in New York State where there had been a gasoline tanker explosion. All that was left of the downtown area was a bank vault in an otherwise empty lot. I think the town was called Locke.