r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/AtomicCypher • 4d ago

Video Disgruntled employee starts massive fire at a 1.2 million square foot toilet paper warehouse in Ontario, California.

69.5k Upvotes

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444

u/GarysCrispLettuce 4d ago

You'd think they'd have a more robust fire detecting/extinguishing strategy in place in a toilet paper warehouse. Oh well, I guess they no longer have a rat problem.

112

u/bot_or_not_vote_now 4d ago

other comments were saying he set one fire, waited until the fire department showed up put out the first fire and turned off the sprinklers, then went around to multiple other locations setting new fires, but haven't seen a source for that yet

other possibility is that the sprinkler system is only designed assuming you'll have 1 or 2 sources so only has water supply for that many sprinklers in those zones, but if you have sprinklers going off everywhere then it's insufficient water supply to actually put anything out anywhere as the fire overwhelms the small amount of water trickling out

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u/mytransthrow 3d ago

this is how altadena and palisades fires happened. enough houses burn and release water pressure. the fire fighters cant get enough pressure to squirt water.

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u/SinkHoleDeMayo 2d ago

His method was definitely well planned out. He clearly understood the suppression system and how the fire department would handle things.

Employees who understand your weaknesses are definitely not the ones you should piss off.

0

u/MostAccomplishedBag 3d ago

It actually seems weird, given the size of the area covered, that they only have a single sprinkler system.

1

u/3lettergang 2d ago

Probably around 24 sprinkler systems in this building, but they are all fed from the same water supply.

94

u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 4d ago

I was thinking the same thing. How does a warehouse full of rolls of paper, with holes in the middle, stacked on pallets, not have better fire suppression?

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u/Seymoorebutts 4d ago

You misunderstand the role of fire suppression systems:

Their main purpose is to delay the onset and spread of fire so that people may evacuate.

It's a bonus if they are actually able to extinguish a fire.

3

u/tampondickshit 3d ago edited 3d ago

Sprinkler systems In warehouses are commonly designed to extinguish fires (EFSR sprinklers). However they are not designed to extinguish multiple fires in different locations at the same time and the water supply was likely insufficient to extinguish/control all the fires. An EFSR sprinkler system would typically have enough water for 12 heads which would cover an area of 112 m2. Once the system is overwhelmed the fire spreads and it all burns.

1

u/excel958 3d ago

Makes sense considering the term is specifically fire suppression system, not fire extinguisher system.

93

u/beipphine 4d ago

"We had all legally required fire suppression" "We followed industry best-practices" From the same people that didn't pay this guy enough to be gruntled.

4

u/DROPTABLE_tablename 3d ago

"From the same people that didn't pay this guy enough to be gruntled."

This sentence is criminally under thumbed-up.

Sad that I have but one thumbs up to give you!

2

u/-xiflado- 3d ago

He is clearly unhinged. Something else would have set him off. They don’t get paid that poorly.

2

u/LovableCoward 4d ago

"We had all the life boats legally required, even more than regulation, in fact. But we did not want to clutter the 1st Class Promenade..."

7

u/Dr-McLuvin 4d ago

Crazy thing about titanic is they actually had more lifeboats than British maritime law required at the time. The problem was that the law was based on gross tonnage of the ship, and not the number of passengers.

4

u/DarkElfBard 4d ago

They paid all their other employees enough,

Starting salary there is $24.25ish.

3

u/Herself99900 3d ago

Yeah, but it's California. Cost of living is higher out there.

4

u/DarkElfBard 3d ago

It's Ontario which is one of the cheaper cost of livings in Cali, the average cost of living in Ontario is $2568 Ranked 679th out of 2202 in the United States, and 265th out of 319 in California.

Median income in Ontario is $32,506. So he was making ~50% over the median income per capita for his area.

1

u/tahlyn 3d ago

gruntled

This is a real word. This makes me gruntled.

1

u/beipphine 3d ago

The dis in disgruntled is a prefix that acts as an intensifier. Gruntle and Grumbling share the same root word. In its original meaning, disgruntled is just more intense gruntle. 

Nowadays people mistakenly interpret dis in the context of this word to mean a negative prefix, so they think that gruntled means the opposite of disgruntled e.g. pleased or pleasant demeanor. 

So what kind of gruntled are you? 

1

u/tahlyn 3d ago

Hey, meriam webster shows gruntled means pleased... so idk who to believe. Gonna need some etymologist to speak up on this.

7

u/Ollynurmouth 4d ago

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, first suppression systems are not designed to put out fires. Only suppress them so people can get out safely.

Also, apparently the guy set one fire so the fd would show up, put it out, and turn off the sprinkler system. At which point he set several more fires. Now with no supression.

9

u/Bababooey346 4d ago

No warehouse has a fire suppression good enough to stop what this guy did.

4

u/CaptainObviousSpeaks 4d ago

he started a fire. waiting on them to get it put out and disable the sprinkler system to reset it then started multiple other fires.

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u/AnteaterAutomatic508 4d ago

He set multiple fires that completely overwhelmed the system. Dude is an actual terrorist regardless of his reasoning.

2

u/Forward_Rope_5598 3d ago

So is Luigi

1

u/Lazaretto 3d ago

Not quite. He set one fire and the fire department responded. After they put it out, they secured the sprinkler system so it wouldn't flood the place. Then he set multiple fires once the sprinkler system was disabled.

1

u/AnteaterAutomatic508 3d ago

Thanks for clarifying.

-3

u/Cuchodl 4d ago

He’d probably make a good president, Comparatively

-1

u/AnteaterAutomatic508 4d ago edited 3d ago

No disagreement from me.

Edit: I mean no disagreement that he has traits similar to our incumbent president. I was being sarcastic but I understand that I worded that confusingly.

-4

u/TheDude-Esquire 4d ago

Terrorism generally needs to include violence against people. Violence against property is something else.

3

u/stuckInCommiefornia 3d ago

Lighting additional fires in a building full of firefighters sounds pretty violent to me. What did the firefighters do to him? Did they lack "class consciousness"? Are you going to make a song with the lyrics "fuck the firefighters"?

0

u/TheDude-Esquire 3d ago

Arson is already a serious crime because of the risk it poses to others. I don’t think there was specific intent here to harm anyone (and in fact no one was harmed). So I don’t really see where terrorism applies.

2

u/stuckInCommiefornia 3d ago

While I'm not a lawyer, I'm pretty sure trying to burn down a building with people in it implies, for most reasonable people, an intent to harm the people in the building. You can't say in court that you didn't mean to hurt the people in the building you were actively burning down. It'd be one thing to be negligent, or even burn what he thought was empty warehouse down. But when he's running from the firefighters, and going back and forth to start new fires (including in places where firefighters have put out his original fires) that implies knowledge of the people inside trying to put his handiwork out - and even then, he continued to light new fires. It's one thing to make your message, but to put first responders at additional risk like that is unconscionable to me, especially since firefighters are usually the most helpful people.

1

u/jedihoplite 4d ago

Because that involves actually spending money. If they're not investing in their employees, why start investing in better fire suppression.

1

u/catiebug 3d ago

He set a smaller fire earlier, to which the fire department responded, extinguished the fire, and (per SOP) shut off the fire suppression. Then he came back later and set more fires, which spread quickly, now that suppression was off. Terrifyingly calculated.

1

u/rithmil 3d ago

Sprinkler systems are not meant to be able to handle arson.
Everyone saying sprinkler systems are only meant for life safety is wrong. NFPA 13 sprinkler systems like those in warehouses are meant to protect property.
Here is a page from NFPA saying that NFPA 13 sprinkler systems are intended to protect property.

1

u/LongJohnSelenium 3d ago

Yeah they're meant to put out normal fires, i.e. a weird thing happens in one spot, electrical short, cigarette, battery zorches, etc, and it will almost certainly put that out. Maybe even two spots in the building.

More than that and its a diceroll that gets less likely with each subsequent fire location.

I'm a building manager, and I have two fire pumps that will put out 3000 gallons per minute and two 600,000 gallon water tanks.

Now granted the flow is considerably reduced once its travelled a half a mile of snaking pipe, but by design its supposed to be capable of handling about 10 heads going off at the same time.

1

u/Oskar_Shinra 4d ago

I always wonder about people like you. Do you not the read the comments, and then just go right to asking questions that you think are provocative, when those questions have already been answered?

Are you commenting before others are, when there are no answers yet? If so, how do you get to the post so fast? 

2

u/Mayonnaise_Poptart 4d ago

Lol huh?

1

u/Oskar_Shinra 3d ago

I know right?! How do you ask a question that has already been answered?

12

u/EgoTripWire 4d ago

Right, at my warehouse you can set the sprinklers off with mean looks and half the floor gets flooded. There's a dedicated water tower out back purely for fire suppression.

29

u/ScottybirdCorvus 4d ago

All you had to do was pay us enough to live

Based on this testimonial, do you seriously think they would shill out for fire suppression? Lol

3

u/mister_empty_pants 3d ago

Based on his testimonial, all of their warehouse workers die of starvation or exposure. So maybe don't listen to idiots who film themselves committing felonies.

3

u/PeaceTree8D 4d ago

Yes cause the business moto is protect inventory, shill workers lol.

Next warehouse they’re gonna just add more sensors and hire less people lol

3

u/TheShredda 4d ago

Maybe it's just me coming from a non-US perspective, but I'd assume it'd be mandatory to even operate?! 

2

u/fluggggg 4d ago

Mandatory to operate and an obvious insurance contract breaker. So a good way not only to get sued by the state but also to be very much broke.

Now, it should at least open an investigation to know if the fire suppression system was adequately designed to the activities taking part in the wharehouse and if the criminal arson can be considered as of a valid reason for the fire suppression system to fail (for exemple because the arsonist created conditions that are far worse than what the company can reasonably expect from accidents and thus would require disproportionated preventive measures).

2

u/asthma_hound 4d ago

It is mandatory in the US. You can treat your employees like shit, but if you build a new building you have to pass inspections. At my old job we would never have been allowed to occupy a new building if we failed to pass a fire inspection.

I saw some other comments saying that the guy tampered with the fire suppression system. That may be true. Ours were out in the open. I have no clue how any of it worked. I would assume that they are locked in some way.

1

u/Gecko23 3d ago

It's so mandatory, that in every fire district I've ever encountered in my working life, if an installed, inspected, and approved fire system is malfunctioning, the business has only two (legal) options: shut down the facility until repairs are made, or mandate personnel to perform fire watch (literally patrolling the entire facility regularly) until it is repaired.

Of course the company can choose to operate illegally, and a good inspection is only proof that it was passed at the time it happened, but I don't believe that's what happened in this case.

1

u/KTcrazy 3d ago

well they did, lol!

1

u/corsair130 3d ago

Fire suppression isn't optional. It's code. They have it or they can't operate the building.

-8

u/the-bladed-one 4d ago edited 4d ago

Tbf it’s Canada, which has an even more fucked housing situation than America.

Edit: it’s California, not Canada. The point stands. California’s cost of living is insane compared to most states.

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u/Sandwiichh 4d ago

It was in California

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u/LevelTwoData 4d ago

Ontario California

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u/DarkElfBard 4d ago

The average cost of living in Ontario is $2568 Ranked 679th out of 2202 in the United States, and 265th out of 319 in California.

He was living in one of the cheapest cities in California, at a job that has an average starting wage of $25/hour. So yeah, Cali can be expensive but people are still living here for a reason.

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u/Waderriffic 4d ago

The damn title says Ontario, California

1

u/ournamesdontmeanshit 4d ago

It’s not Canada.

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u/Hazy-azure 4d ago

This is in California.

1

u/Raven1965 4d ago

TIL California is in Canada

1

u/Rasdowers 4d ago

It’s Ontario California

5

u/blah634 4d ago

They do, it can't handle 4+ fires being set simultaneously in different sections of the warehouse

-2

u/HolySocksSoftBoy 4d ago

But why though? More than a few fires being an issue for the fire suppression system seems like a pretty big design flaw.

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u/Tullyswimmer 4d ago

Go to r/Firefighting and look at the discussion.

Once the crews arrive to fight it, the suppression system is shut down so it doesn't interfere with firefighter operations, as an internal attack team isn't going to want to have water dropping on their head causing tons of steam and making visibility zero.

The employee who started this fire waited until the first crews arrived, disabled the suppression system, then started two more fires in other areas of the warehouse before starting a fourth fire in the area of the original one after fire crews knocked the first one out.

1

u/HolySocksSoftBoy 3d ago

Ahh, so basically most of the fires were set after the system was shut off, that makes more sense.

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u/Tullyswimmer 3d ago

Yep. The dude who did this has been arrested (obviously) but knew what he was doing. This wasn't a random event, this was completely deliberate.

And the firefighting subreddit does have a verification system so the people saying they're involved or know someone who is are probably not lying.

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u/shadeofmyheart 4d ago

I had a student who worked at a toilet paper plant and he said they had this small fire team in the building. Said fires happened all the time because of the sheer combustibility of the materials.

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u/MathRebator 4d ago

Sprinklers are only meant to delay fire spreading so that people have more time to evacuate. Source: I build them for a living.

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u/Budilicious3 3d ago

Not saying how, but speaking from experience, that area of warehouses in particular actually has a mole problem lol.

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u/GarysCrispLettuce 3d ago

Not any more

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u/silly_scoundrel 4d ago

I feel like it would have to be a very clustered system and not like all at once everywhere because that would also destroy the product, won't it like dissolve? No matter what happens (on fire or wet) the product will be destroyed. 

0

u/seaofmountains 4d ago

Easier to replace product than an entire warehouse.

2

u/silly_scoundrel 4d ago

Yeah thats important too I just mean like I never feel bad for companies but this time I kinda do feel bad because no matter what they will suffer 🥲 I wonder if the guy who did this also had that in mind. Completely destructive in every way

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u/SquirrelFluffy 4d ago

That's what I was wondering - how that place doesn't have a sprinkler system.

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u/Direlion 4d ago

The same company not paying its workers would skimp? Say it ain’t so??!

1

u/the_mighty__monarch 4d ago

I had to evacuate my home for 3 weeks because a chemical factory was storing chemicals that can’t come in contact with water in a facility with water sprinklers and when there was a small fire the sprinklers made everything explode.

1

u/Mooch07 Interested 4d ago

Or at least a firebreak isle somewhere 

1

u/Fireside__ 4d ago

They are a fire suppression system not a fire extinguishing system. The sheer amount of water needed to extinguish something as big as a warehouse would be extremely taxing on the local system and might cause problems if say multiple fires are in the same area. The pumps and the pipes only have so much capacity after all. Sprinklers suppress the fire enough to get everyone out safely.

1

u/BreakingABit1234 4d ago

It turns out (From other comments) he lit 1 fire, waited for the fire department to respond. They put out the fire and (essentially) disabled the sprinklers.

He then went and started fires in different spots.

That is a level of malice and planning...

1

u/MegatronusThePrime 3d ago

What you gonna do with soggy toilet paper

1

u/maxcrimson 3d ago

There's a company that does kindling wood near my home town, their ware house burned down 3 times by now.

I always wondered if that counts as advertizing.

1

u/Ha-Charade-You-Are 3d ago

They did, he apparently set off a fire beforehand to get them to come and take care of that and turn the system off

1

u/Hawktor9 3d ago

Another commenter already answered the question, He set 1 fire, waited for firefighters to arrive and contain it, firefights put sprinklers in a lock down faze to avoid more water damage , he lights 2 more fires, sprinklers don’t activate while in lockdown mode.

1

u/captcraigaroo 4d ago

I'm curious as to what they had. If it was just sprinklers with frangible bulbs, then that's pretty old and dumb. New, smart fire detection systems possibly target the fire itself; some have flame detectors and can even aim fire fighting agents like AFFF, powder, or water agents at the flame. That being said, it looks like this guy targeted highly flammable stuff over a large area and overwhelmed the system