In the stillness of night, a quiet, tree-lined street in a San Diego neighborhood was plunged into chaos when a plane clipped a power line and crashed – turning cars into fireballs and sending residents fleeing in a haze of smoke and confusion.

A small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood early Thursday, setting about 15 homes fire and evacuating homes along several blocks, authorities said.

“We have jet fuel all over the place,” Dan Eddy, San Diego’s assistant fire chief, said at an early morning news conference. He described the neighborhood as a “gigantic debris field.”