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Your Help Is Needed Identifying An Arson Suspect

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Police and fire investigators are trying to find the person who set a gas station pump on fire in Sacramento.

"I'm looking down and when I look up there's a huge fire," one of the gas station employees, Marichal Brown, said.

Investigators say the man standing in the middle of the fire, is the one who started it. Employees say he was acting strangely from the second he walked on the property.

"He was screaming from the top of lungs. Just cussing as much as he can," Brown said.

They say he had a plastic fuel tank, but no car in sight.

Brown said, "I gave him $3 for gas and then I guess what he did was he stuck it in & then made sure there was gas all over the place and then he lit his match and set everything off".

Employees stepped up right away. One started evacuating the station, the other grabbed a fire extinguisher. Thankfully, firefighters happened to be in the area, saw the smoke, and took over. They say this was minutes away from being catastrophic.

"With the multiple pumps, multiple tanks that are underground, multiple vehicles, lots of people. Super busy intersection. One of the second busiest intersections in the county there could have been lots of injuries lots of danger lots of damage," Sacramento Metro Fire Public Information Officer Chris Vestal said.

The one person who may have been hurt is the guy in the middle of the fire.

But apparently, he wasn't in any hurry to get away.

"It seemed like he caught himself a little bit. He had his hands up but then he started walking away slowly and watched the rest of it," Brown said.

Now, investigators are trying to find this man, and figure out why he did this.

"People who start fires, they have lots of motives, lots of reasons for doing it but until we actually have a chance to talk to him we won't know what his true intentions were," Vestal said.

ALSO: Locking Up Sacramento's Public Space To Cut Down On Crime

If you recognize this person, you are asked to call the arson tip line at 916-859-3775.

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