A person was taken into custody after a massive fire erupted in a paper warehouse in Ontario on Tuesday.
Firefighters responded to the Kimberly-Clark warehouse near Hellman and Merrill avenues around12:30 a.m. after getting 911 calls from warehouse employees, Ontario Fire Department Deputy Chief Mike Woodell said.
"We also received notification from the fire alarm company when the alarm system activated and the fire protection system, including sprinklers, activated," Woodell said. "We initiated a large response as we normally would to a commercial structure fire. Our first arriving units arrived approximately eight minutes after being first notified. Upon their arrival, they were met with a fair amount of smoke, smoke throughout the building. They had the fire alarm system sounding and the sprinklers activating."
L.A. County Fire Department, Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department, Chino Fire Department, and San Bernardino County Fire Department were among those assisting the firefight,, Woodell said.
Twenty employees inside the warehouse managed to escape. No injuries or fatalities were reported.
As of 7:46 a.m., fire officials said the fire was contained to the building.
Police said a warehouse employee was identified as a suspect and taken into custody for arson. A fire official told Jon Baird the employee arrested for arson was having a “life issue” and posted some things online that indicated he might do something like this.
Baird spoke with residents in a nearby neighborhood, who said they left as soon as they saw as the flames.
“At 1:30 [a.m.], we got a call and I could see everything is orange,” one woman said. “The sky was orange.”
Bruce, another resident, said he decided to stay.
"Neighbors came through the neighborhood honking horns, and you know, I thought somebody was coming home from a party," he said. "It was, like,1:30 in the morning and it kept going and then somebody finally came and knocked on our door and said, 'you know, there was a fire back here.'"
In a statement to KTLA, officials with Kimberly-Clark said that the facility is “operated by a third-party partner” and that they are working with them and local authorities.
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