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The Inland Empire Warehouse Fire: Arson & Supply Chain Chaos · Industrial Advisors

• 0:00
  We got a call, 7:00 AM when the building was burning.
• 0:03
  'cause we have a client that works with them looking for some relief.
• 0:07
  But the whole building, which was rare, and immediately when
• 0:09
  I, I pulled it up, I was like.
• 0:12
  This is arson.
• 0:13
  Right?
• 0:13
  Because you don't have 1.2 million feet burning all at once, right?
• 0:18
  Right.
• 0:18
  Those sprinkler systems are Yes.
• 0:20
  I mean, you're, you're gonna have a fire in an area and they're
• 0:23
  gonna, you know, contain it.
• 0:24
  It's not gonna be 1.2 million feet.
• 0:26
  Yeah.
• 0:26
  So immediately.
• 0:28
  I said, this doesn't seem right.
• 0:45
  Welcome to our Industrial Advisors podcast.
• 0:48
  You have.
• 0:49
  Bill and Matt, and we're doing a five minute Friday today.
• 0:52
  Kind of a unique one.
• 0:53
  There was a build 1.2 million square foot building in the Inland
• 0:57
  Empire area that caught on fire.
• 0:59
  Yeah.
• 1:00
  By the time this airs, it would've been the last week, right?
• 1:03
  Yeah.
• 1:03
  So Kimberly Clark, 1.2 million square feet, we got a call, 7:00
• 1:09
  AM when the building was burning.
• 1:11
  'cause we have a client that works with them looking for some relief.
• 1:14
  But the whole building, which was rare, and immediately when I. I pulled it up.
• 1:18
  I was like.
• 1:20
  This is arson.
• 1:21
  Right?
• 1:21
  Because you don't have 1.2 million feet burning all at once, right?
• 1:26
  Right.
• 1:26
  Those sprinkler systems are Yes.
• 1:28
  I mean, you're, you're gonna have a fire in an area and they're
• 1:30
  gonna, you know, contain it.
• 1:32
  It's not gonna be 1.2 million feet.
• 1:34
  Yeah.
• 1:34
  So immediately.
• 1:36
  I said, this doesn't seem right, but obviously highly combustible.
• 1:40
  When you got Kimberly Clark, which is the distributor, I think the
• 1:44
  largest distributor of, you know, paper goods, from tissue to toilet
• 1:47
  paper to paper goods of all sorts.
• 1:49
  Yeah.
• 1:50
  In the US this building housed about 3%, I think, of their capacity.
• 1:54
  Oh, wow.
• 1:54
  Yeah.
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  Uh, in the US covers about 50 million.
• 1:57
  People that utilize that, those resources down, down in
• 2:00
  that, uh, part of the country.
• 2:02
  But it came out that not an employee of theirs and the way these work often
• 2:07
  are, third party logistics companies come into those warehouses and handle
• 2:11
  the product, operate on behalf Yeah.
• 2:13
  Of those companies.
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  So it wasn't a Kimberly Clark employee, although on the outside
• 2:17
  it would look like it, right?
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  'cause they're operating and employed there.
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  But it was a disgruntled employee of the three pl. We won't name the
• 2:23
  three pl. It's not their fault.
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  Right?
• 2:25
  Yeah, right.
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  But apparently the gentleman.
• 2:27
  Put it on his social media, very disgruntled about, about labor,
• 2:31
  uh, uh, you know, and all of that.
• 2:32
  And did some sort of, I think a live feed and started catching,
• 2:36
  you know, pallets on fire.
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  And there was 20 employees in there at the time.
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  It was the graveyard shift, so it was like, you know, yeah, 1230 in the morning.
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  Started the fire.
• 2:45
  Everybody got out.
• 2:46
  Oh, good.
• 2:47
  They thought he was trapped in, but he had bailed.
• 2:49
  Oh, he, he he lit it and left.
• 2:51
  Yeah.
• 2:51
  Uh, they, they they tracked him down and arrested him, but everybody, allegedly.
• 2:56
  Yeah.
• 2:56
  Everybody, everybody got out.
• 2:58
  Everybody got out.
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  No, uh, no casualties of any kind.
• 3:01
  I don't think he even any injuries.
• 3:02
  Yeah.
• 3:03
  At least that's not what the press is reporting.
• 3:05
  So, so that's what you got.
• 3:07
  You've got a, it sounds like a criminal arson situation.
• 3:10
  1.2 million feet goes down and.
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  Gosh, what does a company do?
• 3:14
  Right?
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  Yeah.
• 3:15
  Which is, yeah.
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  And that's not like 30,000 feet of product that you're trying to move.
• 3:18
  No.
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  All of a sudden that's in, that's an, an insane change to your
• 3:21
  supply chain, and I'm sure there are, you know, figuring it out.
• 3:25
  Yeah.
• 3:26
  I remember a couple years ago, maybe more now, we sold a building in Auburn and
• 3:31
  all of a sudden same thing and like, I think it happened in early, early morning.
• 3:35
  Somebody was like flying a rocket.
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  A drone, wasn't it a drone?
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  It was a, uh, it was a, it was a, a rocket like the kids do
• 3:42
  in their science classroom.
• 3:44
  Yeah.
• 3:44
  You things hit, hit, hit, hit the, hit the roof.
• 3:46
  Hit the roof of the building.
• 3:47
  Yeah.
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  Building catches fire.
• 3:49
  Yes.
• 3:49
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
• 3:50
  And so it was on the news and I'm like, and you know, while we're
• 3:52
  watching, I'm like, that's, that's, you know, I, that's logistics.
• 3:54
  Yeah.
• 3:55
  Right.
• 3:56
  I, I looked in preparation for this podcast, as you know, and I just
• 4:00
  did a quick AI search and we know a few fires in our careers Yeah.
• 4:03
  In the valley, but surprisingly over the last 10 years, it's, it's, it's over
• 4:07
  one a year that have been substantial.
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  Right?
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  The most one, and you won't remember this one, maybe you will, the biggest one.
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  That ever happened.
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  The most well known one is the Mary Pang warehouse fire in
• 4:19
  the China District of Seattle.
• 4:21
  Yeah.
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  That was a manufacturing plant.
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  And the reason why I remember that one I always remember too 'cause
• 4:26
  it was the, it was the big year with Mar the Mariners, right?
• 4:28
  Yeah.
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  But it was, uh, they killed, six firefighters died.
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  It was arson.
• 4:32
  Yeah.
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  And, uh, the guy went to the prison for arson, but, but we've had, we had
• 4:37
  a tire warehouse fire once in Kent.
• 4:39
  We had a carpet warehouse fire in Kent.
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  We had the most recent one that comes to mind was the, uh, I, I can't remember.
• 4:45
  It's for Fortress.
• 4:46
  In Puyallup.
• 4:47
  It was the old cold storage building that burned down.
• 4:49
  Oh, right.
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  It was just a few years ago.
• 4:51
  Yeah.
• 4:52
  Yeah.
• 4:52
  I forgot about that.
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  Yeah.
• 4:53
  But pretty much when I looked, it's like more than one a year every single year.
• 4:57
  Major fires where they've taken down the, the facility.
• 5:01
  Yeah.
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  You know, and, and, uh.
• 5:03
  And Yeah, it happens.
• 5:04
  Yeah, it happens.
• 5:05
  Yeah.
• 5:05
  It's more common that, I mean, that, you know, one a year is,
• 5:08
  is actually more than I thought.
• 5:10
  Yeah.
• 5:10
  You know, just because of all the safety precautions and things that are in place.
• 5:13
  But it's a lot of warehouses, lot of places.
• 5:16
  So, you know.
• 5:16
  Yeah.
• 5:16
  I guess that doesn't surprise me that much.
• 5:18
  Yeah.
• 5:18
  And reading that, 'cause you always, oh, fire, you know, fire delays and they're
• 5:21
  gonna make you do this interact, you know, you start to, when you read these
• 5:24
  reports, you're like, okay, I get it.
• 5:25
  You know?
• 5:25
  Yeah.
• 5:26
  Right.
• 5:26
  I mean.
• 5:27
  You wanna protect your facility and you better have the right, you know,
• 5:30
  fire suppression system and you know, and not abuse that so that the
• 5:33
  whole building doesn't burn down.
• 5:34
  Right.
• 5:35
  That's right.
• 5:35
  Yeah, that's right.
• 5:36
  So, uh, happy Friday.
• 5:38
  Happy Friday, and there's our update.