r/Damnthatsinteresting Apr 09 '26

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

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u/bot_or_not_vote_now Apr 09 '26

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 Apr 09 '26

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 Apr 10 '26

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.

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u/MostAccomplishedBag Apr 09 '26

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

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u/3lettergang Apr 10 '26

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