Possible arson at work.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I live and work in Southern California just east (in the rain shadow) of the San Gabriel Mountains. I work right next to the highway. Between us and the highway is about 25 feet of brush and bushes. It rained about 2 days ago for a few hours overnight and I could see some flowers blooming.

Everything seemed semi-green and alive and out of nowhere massive amounts of smoke starts coming from behind the 6 foot brick wall that separates our parking lot from all the brush. The fire spread really quickly from being only a few feet long to hundreds of feet long within about 5 minutes. The flames were pretty high and rolling over the wall. Usually we employees park our cars against that wall but they are putting solar panels up in our parking lot and we had to park next door. Dodged a bullet there.

Firefighters were great. They sent one truck and had it out in 15 minutes.

What I don’t get is how the fire started. At the time no construction was going on and I don’t think a cigarette from a passing car could have done it. It did not seem dry enough. Firefighters were investigating for hours and continued to do so even after we closed up. Maybe we will be informed tomorrow.

2

That’s scary. I hope the cause is found, whether deliberate or accidental.

3

A lot of the fires I worked that close to civilization were started by kids messing around or the homeless for cooking fires.

4

Maybe arson, maybe not, though arson is one thing to consider . But I’ve seen brushfires literally start - right in front of me - without intervention of any sort - in Florida, Colorado, and Georgia. Sunlight off a piece of glass, spontaneous combustion are other possiblities.

Anyway, glad no one lost anything.

5

Just to update, they had ALL the solar panels lined up against the wall and lost them all. Apparently $600,000 worth. I had no idea they were worth that much. There were about 20 pallets full of solar panels lost. No word on whether it was arson.

One of the workers lost his tool box. Looks like a modern art sculpture now.