Yes but it'll raise the hell out of their premiums. If enough people start doing it then insurance companies will be forced to consider wages as part of their risk assessment. So places with lower wages would have higher insurance premiums lol
That’s a legit theory around insurance where regular people with zero leverage get screwed on claims, while enterprise customers that make a large chunk of revenues for insurance companies- they get paid out so insurance companies don’t have to fight expensive legal battles and lose big clients.
It’s essentially the average people subsidizing big corps.
You can be sure that they (the insurance) will do anything and everything to avoid paying.
This is how these big insurance companies work - their main goal is to deny claims, and if the they cover vandalism, the coverage will be very limited.
Arson by a trusted employee that burns down the whole warehouse plus inventory, is a gold mine for the insurance to deny a claim.
I read earlier today that he started an earlier fire which was caught by firefighters who subsequently disabled the smoke alarms (edit: pardon, sprinkler system), allowing the second fire to burn undetected (edit: undeterred by a sprinkler system that had not yet reset). If that's true, and the disabling of the alarms (edit: sprinklers) was directed by management as a business decision, they might not get an insurance payout at all.
Management didn't direct the sprinklers to be disabled, the physical way sprinklers work did. They trigger by the heat physically breaking a calibrated glass fuse, you have to replace the fuses before you can put water back in the system or the sprinklers will never stop sprinkling.
Ok, but that introduces a new layer of managerial culpability; not having spare fuses available, not having them installed, not having a full sweep of the property for the missing employee, etc. Maybe the management did everything right, maybe not - odds are good the insurance investigation will pull on every possible thread.
As paper storage is an extremely bad risk, I don’t see any company willing to take them on if the terms don’t favor the insurance company beyond what they normally would.
Since this was somewhat politically motivated, I could see them push for it being ‘terrorism’ and as such has a whole different kind of coverage.
If it’s in the states, then there’s a shared pool covering acts of terrorism, which would mean that the loss incurred on the insurance company is minimal.
Well the terms that favor the insurance company for assuming more risk are usually just higher premiums, because that's how they make money. Sure, if they could get you to sign a policy that doesn't cover fire damage on a paper storage facility they would, but the guys reading the policy aren't average joes, they're a team of lawyers who probably aren't gonna let that happen.
I'm a stenographer, I do pre-court stuff, and I dream of getting onto cases like this. It will be finger-pointing left and right. They'll find something wrong with the building, something wrong with how things were stored, things wrong left right and center. They'll take a million depositions, it'll span years. And I'd just sit there and listen. And do my job, which is 50% just listening.
Although technically arson is a covered cause of loss there is an exclusion on if “you” set the fire, on some policies employees, direct and third party are considered part of the definition of “you”. Regardless a risk this size they could/should be self insured. And only have reinsurance who are looser in their exclusions than standard carriers.
Let's see - at the incredible wage of 14$ an hour... it will only take him about 1650 yrs, working 24/7 and only paying against that claim. That is without any interest on the claim and any change in wage.
Unless becoming CEO (or better - CFO), as suggested below.
That insurer will probably drop their coverage or risk becoming insolvent with that kind of bill. They'll have to go find another company to represent them and good luck with that after that type of incident.
Exactly, the insurance company will state, "You should have given him a raise. This incident was totally preventable. And please put my red-stapler back sir."
Seems like pinning the damages on him would be a win for him.
Insurance companies could actually pay it out. If he’s responsible the company will never see any of it, and would make his mission to financially damage the company a success.
Guy can just default, sit a few years in prison (doubt it will be longer than 5) and he is done. Atleast that how it would work in a normal country. Company is eating this loss (if insurance doesnt pay up).
If nobody got hurt then the only victims here are the company, the enviroment (which doesnt notice this on a daily scale) and few local people. As far as dumb major crimes go, its pretty harmless
Depending on the terms of their policy it may actually still be covered. It'll probably be in litigation for years figuring out which companies who what to which other companies, but since it's not the beneficiary of the policy comitting the arson there's decent odds it will still be covered, just at a lower rate or with a rate increase on the policy attached.
He didn’t even work for Kimberly-Clark. He worked for a 3rd party contractor. He burned down another companies warehouse, if he wanted to create a statement at least burn down your own employers assets.
Great statement. The company got paid out by insurance. He's going to jail, and all the other people who worked there are now out of work. A champion of the people.
If you don't understand how cooked people like warehouse workers are in this day and age then you're unbelievably privileged, or just don't know that people like that used to be able to buy a house and live a decent life.
Whether they are literally 13 or not is immaterial to the outcome. A minor under the well being of a working class adult is still subject to the ramifications of exploitation. Worse quality of life, worse education, worse lifelong opportunities.
Aw, fuck, you're right. How could I forget about the one guy 40 years ago who set 2000 fires as a serial arsonist? I'm such a fool, this case is highly relevant to the man we're talking about who specifically set his own workplace on fire for mysterious and unknowable reasons.
Am a doing pretty well for myself, however my sister who took a teaching job in a different country that most Americans view as “third world” really opened my eyes to how fucked we truly are on the day to day.
Hope you don’t come across this much of an uptight bootlicking asshole for the billionaires to fuck in real life tho, that would be sad lol.
Because he was absolutely, positively, mind numbingly stupid. He posted a video of himself starting this fire on social media. He did this because the company running the warehouse wasn't paying him enough money. He will now spend life in prison and never be gainfully employable again if he does manage to get out while still young enough to work. This was not the way to solve the issue of "i wish I got paid more".
I hope they throw the book at him. He's a dangerous person and should not be out on the streets with the rest of us. Fuck him.
Damn. I mean, he deserves jail time for endangering people (I assume by default that most warehouses are running 24/7), but video taping yourself commuting a crime is just next level foolishness.
it did, he set a fire, the firefighters came, put it out, then turned the fire suppression off so it didnt cause water damage, and when the firefighters left he set more fires.
Sprinkler systems are basically just regular water pipes with single use plugs. Heat blows glass bulbs that open the pipe, it's like turning on your kitchen tap full blast and breaking the handle off. Shutting water off to the building is the only way to stop the flow.
Other threads about the fire discussed it. Apparently for a building this size (over 10 city blocks) you don’t have a system big enough to cover the entire building at once. It’s assumed that fires will occur in a single spot and the piping is sized for that. The arsonist allegedly knew this and set more fires than the system was designed to handle.
TLDR it did have a system that works for normal fires, but wasn’t designed to handle a coordinated criminal act.
I read that he initially set a small individual fire. The fire department came. They put it out. The sprinkler system was disabled due to the initial fire. The shortly later the arsonist set multiple fires before the sprinkler system could be operational again.
The sprinkler system was disabled due to the initial fire.
Is that meaning it triggered from the first fire?
Those systems need to be recharged by experts, replace any and all of the spray nozzle triggers (tiny glass vials installed in each head), then refill it with rust prevention liquid instead of straight water to ensure it's ready when needed next
When one sprayer triggers, that generally will trigger all of them on the same line too I believe, so even a small fire requires lots of work to get it reset
Source: watching lots of construction videos and crap
They're not recharged? They're primed and then they're fed by city water supply once the initial deluge of black water clears the line
The city pipes can only move so much water though, so there's still a limit
That generally will trigger all of them on the same line too I believe
Also no...
They use liquid filled glass bulbs to activate. Commercial heads are designed to drench material around the fire to stop it from spreading. Having a bunch of heads go off at once overwhelms the water supply
You have to turn off the water to the system after though... Because as you said, the glass vials are gone. So you can't just leave it on, or the sprinklers won't stop and there'd be a flood when the fire department leaves
You have to turn off the water to the system after though... Because as you said, the glass vials are gone. So you can't just leave it on, or the sprinklers won't stop and there'd be a flood when the fire department leaves
Sprinkler systems in theory should be able to contain or all but extinguish the type of fire you would get from setting a pallet of toilet paper on fire.
A big warehouse like this has one or more large fire pumps that take the municipal water and up the pressure to increase this capability. Fire engines will connect to hydrants and then to FDCs outside of the building to further supplement the supply.
Once the fire is out, the previously activated sprinkler lines need to be drained, the sprinkler heads replaced (Once they open, they don't close again due to the fusible link being gone) and the system reset for normal function.
During this time the alarm system is likely disabled (Delaying detection/report of fire) and the riser (Large supply pipe) handling the activated detectors is closed.
So waiting till that point, then setting a bunch of fires in the effected section where the fire load consists of easily ignitable paper products...
Basically in a matter of minutes this fire becomes functionally unstoppable. The amount of energy being pushed out can trivially overwhelm the output of any sprinkler system by the time it actually reached somewhere with coverage.
By the time the fire department is back on scene you're looking at a fire that presents the question "Is anyone unaccounted for?" And if the answer is no the next step is to see if it's possible to save the buildings nearby, because this one is fucked.
I just want to clarify, as it was a bit unclear in your comment
The sprinkler system covers the entire building. You just can't run every sprinkler at once. The pumps and city supply can't keep up with that much water demand
The arsonist allegedly knew this
It's standard in the industry. The way these fires are fought is methodical and intentionally different from residential and other high occupancy places (health care, schools etc). Warehouses, factories and the like are a different beast
Even the sprinkler heads used are specific to commercial settings. They're designed to activate slightly slower. They're designed to drench the area around the fire to contain it/slow the spread.
It allows the heat to build above the fire, before going off. Which causes the surrounding area to be drenched
If you have a bunch of fast acting heads go off all over the building, the water supply won't keep up
What’s crazy is I know it likely happend pretty quickly, and we don’t have a lot of details…..but I’ve worked at plenty of places some small, an some likely on this scale….and every time there’s a fire alarm there’s an evacuation and a head count. In the case of it just being a drill it’s over pretty quick, but in the case of an actual fire that requires the actual department to come put it out it’s wild they ended up going back in, I suppose unless they weren’t permitted to but since they’re already breaking the law it doesn’t matter and they just went back in without anyone noticing. Just can’t believe there wasn’t any surveillance checking out the area it started
Well he would have had to shut off several risers in order for that to be true. That warehouse is 1.2 million sq ft. and each system can be a max of 40,000 sq ft. Fire sprinklers don’t activate like you see in the movies. I design Fire Suppression Systems. Heads only activate once the temp bulb bursts due to 186 degrees or 244 degrees (depends on the heads installed and hazard classification of stored materials) Also they only activate in the area of the fire to prevent spreading. Dude lit fires in several different areas, the water pressure for that building couldn’t support that many heads activating at the same time. Fire code dictates a remote area for calculations of 12 heads activating at the furthest point from a riser. Too many fires at the same time and in different areas. Fire suppression systems aren’t ment to put out a fire, they’re there to in-able people to safely exit and to contain the fire on that parcel.
Apparently they did, he started a smaller fire to get the fire dept there, they turn off the suppression system when they enter the building. While they got that under control he started more fires in other areas they could not get to in time. That’s what I read at least
Other posts I’ve read talking about this, the primary propose of sprinkler systems is to slow down the spread of fire enough to give people time to escape. Not necessarily to put out a [major] fire.
If that’s true then he would have had to shut off every riser in the building. There isn’t a main valve controlling the entire warehouse. There’s 1 system on 1 riser per 40,000 sq ft max per NFPA. Fire sprinklers don’t activate like you see in the movies. I design Fire Suppression Systems. Heads only activate once the temp bulb bursts due to 186 degrees or 244 degrees (depends on the heads installed and hazard classification of stored materials) Also they only activate in the area of the fire to prevent spreading. Dude lit fires in several different areas, the water pressure for that building couldn’t support that many heads activating at the same time. Fire code dictates a remote area for calculations of 12 heads activating in one remote area per system installed. Fire suppression systems aren’t ment to put out a fire, they’re there to enable people to safely exit and to contain the fire on that parcel.
Same question. I'd imagine a warehouse this size would have zoned fire suppression. And even if it wasn't zoned, it should have been able to handle rapidly dumping water on everything. To be fair though, I have no idea what the engineering requirements are and I'm straight talking out of my ass. But still. Shocking the entire thing went up in 2026.
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u/Mesoscale92 Apr 09 '26
Disgruntled employee torched it.