Crews Continue To Battle Stockton Pallet Fire Into The Evening
STOCKTON (CBS13) — Stockton Crews battled another pallet fire Tuesday, the third big fire the city has seen in as many weeks.
It broke out early Tuesday morning at Central Pallets on East Market Street. Arson investigators worked late into the evening trying to find out how this fire started.
A group of kids missed school because of the fire. They woke up to this pallet fire just inches from their homes.
"We came outside and all we saw were flames up in the air. I was scared, I didn't want anybody to get hurt or anything," said Danny Speegle. "I was scared at first. I thought it was an earthquake. My mom was like, 'Hurry up! Get up! We have to go outside.'"
They all live across the street and say they're thankful to fire crews their homes and families are okay.
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Azmat Khan was up for morning prayer when the fire started. He called 911 and captured the fire spreading on his cell phone. The heat shattered his windows and the roof of his home.
"I'm thankful I'm okay, my family is okay, and in my neighborhood, they're all okay," Khan said.
This is the third large fire to break out in Stockton in the past few weeks. A paper recycling facility went up in flames at the Port of Stockton, and another pallet yard on West Scotts Avenue caught fire on the next day.
There's no word if they are connected, but it's something investigators are looking into.
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"I'm not aware of any correlation, but they will look into all the fires; we have just to make sure there's not a pattern or something like that," said Chief Shannon Lewis.
The fire knocked down power lines shutting off electricity to the area for hours, but neighbors say they're used to this and sick of being scared of the next fire to hit their town.
"We have fires back there all the time. Do people have to lose their lives for someone to do something about this place? We are always in fear that we're going to burn to death," said one neighbor.
Besides the other two fires this year, there was another fire just around the corner last year that destroyed five homes. It was also a pallet yard and it's not clear whether it was owned by the same company.
