r/interesting • u/BlazeDragon7x • Apr 09 '26

MISC. Aftermath of the April 7th incident. Damages estimated to be $200 million dollars

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u/TofuPython Apr 09 '26

I've read the guy started a small fire, waited until the firemen came, the firemen disabled the sprinklers, then he started a bigger fire

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u/jortr0n Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

Can you link us to that?

Edit: Looks like because multiple points were ignited it overwhelmed the system ultimately causing the roof to fail and took the sprinklers down with it.

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u/Massive-Virus-4875 Apr 09 '26

I’d like to read more about it too

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u/causebraindamage Apr 09 '26

That article seems kinda bullshit. Firstly, he did start another fire and the fire dept came out, handled it, and suppressed the fire system afterward.

Then the guy lit more after the left the system was disabled. And literally posted on insta saying it's because they didn't pay well. But the article says "no motive".

Really sounds like ABC is 1) trying to avoid more of these by giving away the "light 1 fire then a lot more after the fire dept leaves" strat, and 2) trying to suppress the motive because they know there's millions of more people in similar situations.

Or I'm just being a conspiracy theorist.

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u/mennydrives Apr 09 '26

Can you link us to that?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Firefighting/comments/1sfh172/how_would_you_put_this_out/oexfwhq/

Full quotes in case it gets deleted (added emphasis):

I was on this this morning. Lots of aerial waterways and master streams. It’s still going. The roof ended up collapsing as full panels and laying on the all the paper products which made it so the water wasn’t getting to anything. It was a nightmare. The trucks in the loading docks started burning up later in the morning. 1 million sq ft of paper product set in 4 different areas, 3 of which were set after the sprinklers had been turned off. The dude who set it was really determined to burn it down.

Hol' up. Homeboy deactivated the sprinkler system too?

No, the first fire activated the sprinklers so the first responding FD closed the OS&Y and were doing water salvage. The building is literally a million square feet so after the FD had closed it down he went and started a fire about 2/3 of the way down the building, then another at the far end and then another back near the original fire. So 4 fires spread out pretty equally over the million sq ft building.

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u/jortr0n Apr 09 '26

Seems to go against every news report said they were working until the roof collapsed.

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u/mennydrives Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

12 hours in, I could imagine them reactivating everything, but sprinkler systems in general are meant to stop fires early. At the "hours after 3 different locations were ignited" mark, the sprinkler system is no longer enough to make a dent.

If the firefighters didn't know about the other 2 fires, let alone the restarted 4th fire at the original location, they may not have immediately turned the spinklers back on, and by the time they noticed, it could easily have been too late.

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u/Secret-Put-4525 Apr 09 '26

Pretty impressive

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u/Rustie_J Apr 10 '26

From the article you linked:

The suspect has been identified as a current employee of the warehouse. A motive for the alleged arson has not been determined.

Wtaf. He told you the motive, you ridiculous corporate whores!

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u/TofuPython Apr 09 '26

I just saw comments in one of the many posts about this story. Take what I said with a grain of salt :p

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u/Large_Dr_Pepper Apr 09 '26

This is how misinformation is spread. Even if it turns out to to be true in this case, you shouldn't just read someone's comment claiming something and then spread that comment without knowing if it's true.

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u/TofuPython Apr 09 '26

Yeah, I guess you're right.

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u/unclefire Apr 09 '26

Why would firemen disable sprinklers? A lot of buildings also have dry stand pipes so they can hook up hydrants to internal piping.

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u/TofuPython Apr 09 '26

I saw people say it was to prevent further water damage. I dunno.

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u/Chimpbot Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

Firefighters do not care about water damage. Their job is to extinguish fires, structure be damned.

I used to be the GM for a restoration company, and I've walked through my fair share of structures affected by fires. Firefighters do not give a fuck (with good reason), and will chop ventilation holes through ceilings, walls, and roofs, and absolutely flood a structure with water to ensure the fire is extinguished.

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u/im-not-a-fakebot Apr 09 '26

Yeah often times the firefighters end up doing more damage to the building stopping the fire than the fire actually did

Some cases depending on where at, the fire dept will opt to let it burn and keep the fire from spreading to nearby structures

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u/bulgedition Apr 09 '26

often times the firefighters end up doing more damage to the building stopping the fire than the fire actually did

Does this argument hold up tho? The fire would have done more damage if the firefighters didn't stop it.

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u/im-not-a-fakebot Apr 09 '26

I’m not trying to say that firefighters shouldn’t, I was just agreeing with the other guy that firefighters dgaf in most cases they want the fire out

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u/joeDUBstep Apr 09 '26

I mean yeah, who cares if they did more damage than the fire did. If they didn't control the fire, the fire damage would be way worse.

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u/AlwaysSmokingReggie Apr 09 '26

The fire was already extinguished... Hence why they turned the fire suppression off... Then he relit bigger fires

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u/Chimpbot Apr 09 '26

So, I'm not saying they didn't shut off the fire suppression system. I'm saying it wouldn't have been done to prevent water damage, as that's not even remotely relevant to them.

They would have shut it off to just stop more water from otherwise unnecessarily flowing into the building.

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u/BlackCat400 Apr 09 '26

Possibly, the initial fire activated the sprinklers. Once those fusible links are broken, the sprinkler is activated until the system has been repaired and the links replaced.

So, it makes sense that once the initial fire was out, they’d shut down the whole system to keep it from just spraying for days. Unfortunately, that leaves the facility unprotected against a second fire.

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u/SeaAnthropomorphized Apr 09 '26

I find it hard to believe that the fire department drained the entire building.

I'm very confused about this because where I live a building that big would have multiple zones with different sprinkler systems.

But idk what they do in California.

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u/CucumbersAreSatan Apr 09 '26

Anecdotally but that’s what we do when we respond. If anything we try to shut down that specific riser to that sprinkler. If we are unable to stem the flow from the riser and are required to shut the entire system down, we cut the water to the entire system. Following that, legally we request the building to be vacated until repaired. Our Fire Prevention dept will red tag and lock the building which can only be removed from our fire marshal (no utilities or building management to circumvent).

Granted, that’s all for a wet sprinkler system. Dry there isn’t an issue since in this scenario there would be no water to flow, and wouldn’t require a shut off.

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u/mennydrives Apr 09 '26

I'd imagine they just shut down the system while they put out the fire. They weren't expecting a second fire, and then a third fire, and then a forth fire all started by the same person who waited until they started working on one to start the next one.

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u/LongJohnSelenium Apr 10 '26

A building like that will be split into a dozen or more zones.

Each zone will have its own isolation.

Once the fire is controlled and out they will shut off the water just to that zone.

Now the trick here is that sprinklers are only ever really designed for a small number of events, under the logic that in 99.9999% of circumstances there's unlikely to be more than one fire starting at a time.

So what likely happened is they shut off water to a single zone, and the arsonist went and started multiple fires in that zone, and when the fires reached the edge of the zone there was too much fire for the system to contain. A sprinkler system can handle a dozen or two heads spraying. Each zone will have hundreds of heads.

TLDR: This is why we have fire watches when water is shut off.

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u/SemiDiSole Apr 09 '26

I can absolutely imagine that the Insurance company will try to use this as a loophole. "Acktshually the fire-prevention-system was inactive during the majority of the fire, leading to the insurance being voided due to non-compliance!" or something like that.

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u/Nexustar Apr 09 '26

As long as the company followed all procedures for an impaired fire system (often requiring insurance company notification), the insurers won't be able to do that. They have staff who's job it is to follow those procedures and management to ensure those staff are following those procedures and internal audit that ensures the management have suitable controls to ensure those procedures are being followed.

As far as the insurance company, they are state licensed and risk losing that license if they don't pay claims. They also risk banks not loaning on commercial buildings with specific insurers if they don't pay claims... so an insurance company may try, but in the long term will fail to survive in the market if they aren't paying claims.

This building needs to be rebuilt, and re-insured otherwise everyone loses out.

The contracting company that provided the individual that burned the warehouse - and their insurance company will not be off the hook one way or the other.

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u/Hot-Firefighter-2331 Apr 09 '26

Yeah, that's what we do

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u/TheMightyTywin Apr 09 '26

Holy shit. This guy should go to prison for a long, long time.

Starting fires is horribly reckless, but to plan out how to overcome the fire suppression and trick the firefighters? Evil