A devastating blaze tore through a Modesto pallet yard on Friday evening, resulting in extensive damage and a firefighter sustaining a heat-related injury. According to KCRA 3, the fire, which erupted just before 7:30 p.m. near Janopaul Avenue, escalated rapidly into a four-alarm catastrophe drawing a substantial emergency response involving 18 engines from various fire departments in the region.
With the inferno at full tilt, a reported 200,000 pallets were consumed by flames, and the fire ravaged multiple tractor-trailers an RV, and a few power poles and transformers, as well as an unoccupied residential structure on the yard. The Modesto Fire Department stated embers from the main fire caused additional damage to nearby warehouses, the area was blanketed by a thick pall of smoke and towering flames that could be seen for miles, said some eyewitnesses according to another report from ABC 10.
The cost of the damages from this conflagration has been estimated at roughly $1.2 million. Firefighters, amongst them crews from the Turlock Fire Department, Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District, Ripon Fire District, Patterson Fire Department, and a San Joaquin County strike team, worked through the night to contain the blaze. The injured firefighter, who was hospitalized for a heat-related ailment, has since been released, the fire department reports.
Local business owner Jose Bernal found himself among those directly impacted by the event; his nearby auto body shop was heavily damaged—burning down eight years of hard work and growth, "Everything's gone," Bernal told ABC 10. Nevertheless, he expressed relief that no one was hurt during the incident at his business, stating, "The good point is we are fine," finding some solace amidst the ruins, he was grateful his employees were safe, reflecting on the urgency now to rebuild from nothing, because really how does one reassemble the fragments of a livelihood charred in just one evening.
