A firefighter once told me that sprinkler systems aren't really intended to put out the fire. What they are there for is to reduce the speed that the fire spreads and grows to give the occupants time to escape.
@@joevignolor4u949 and this is something people hardly understand. As the son of a firefighter and as a future architect, no one understands this. They don't put out fires or they would be in our homes and there would be no need for fire departments anymore. They simply give you more time for big structures.
Yeah I hope nobody got hurt and this fire gets on my nerves because I love homedepot stores and if I could’ve helped my heroes fight this fire even though I would’ve definitely been one of the witnesses I would’ve definitely fought this fire although carefully
An entire Store?! That's just crazy. I don't expect to see this store re-opening any time soon. It'll have to be bulldozed to ground level and rebuilt. But again, I am very doubtful they'll rebuild soon.
Well, Hydden! Yes, it will be rebuilt. Once it is clear by San Jose as well as OSHA. The store is located on a very popular area. Guess you are not aware of its location. It's across the street from a mall. So yes it will be rebuilt.
All the staff in there would be spread to other stores most likely to keep them employed so I hope there are stores located somewhere close by......????
I doubt that any of the spectators considered the 'Blue Rhino' Propane tanks OUTSIDE the Front Door. If they ignite I think they would launch towards the parking lot since they're against the store front wall. 37 years as a railroad conductor and you don't have to tell me to RUN at the first sight of FIRE.
Question: Has anyone in the fire protection industry been noticing the increase in large, fully alarmed, modern non combustible buildings with sprinkler systems burning to the ground? This was practically unseen in the 90s and 2000s? Something new has hit the scene lately. Something that is either reactive and or has the ability to burn fast and overcome fire protection systems. The Amazon mega wharehouse in California, the Wallmart mega wharehouse in Indiana, Etc. These buildings made of concrete and steal should not be burning like this. This hasn't been seen before. My suspicion is the fascination with lithium batteries. I hope im wrong. What else is new to the stock of products that wasn't prevalent in the past 2 decades?
Smart meters causes a lot of radiation and melts everything around..... But those big stores burning down is a very bad incident for the area, since neighborhood have to go shopping elsewhere. Gasoline getting very expensive, it's a double sword for the pockets.
Insurance fraud. It profitable, to make up the losses during the pandemic. You are correct in your assessments. Modern building, sprinkler and non combustible. Even with a heavy fire load.
I started out in 1990. Most residential fires were contained to a room in content. If the structure was well involved, it still held together and did not crumble right away. We had WAY more time to get in and plan a coordinated attack on the seat of the fire. Nowadays, it's usually fully involved by the time first piece arrives. Now we are talking giant buildings with a LOT of OPEN AIR! High, commercial ceilings, hundreds of openings and hundreds of pounds of chemicals, flammable materials and more. Then there are solar panels. I got out in 2007 so I'm not familiar, first-hand with panels and their systems? Employees don't know proper storage procedures anymore either. I highly doubt any type of incident training is given for them. These building needs BIGGER fire suppression systems, hydrants all around with adequate pressure and depts need to be trained correctly.
I'd say you're right on. By the amount and color of smoke, definitely something folks were not prepared to deal with and lithium batteries, especially lithium polymer batteries, under the right conditions, can be explosive.
Two things, I hope they have their video going to a cloud and they can see where it started. Second, this may be tied up for years with the insurance company because there is NO WAY they will settle this claim in any hurry.
It's in a city of over 1 million people, of course there are other Home Depot stores near by. This was my go-to store but I've visited others in the area especially coming home from work. Curtner store was desolate for about a year after they built it but afterwards was very crowded when people caught on where it was. Capitol was always busy when I went there since it was built. This Blossom Hill store will be sorely missed until it is rebuilt. Home Depot offers a lot that other hardware stores don't have. Glad no one was gravely injured and got out as well as the dogs next door. Please rebuild as soon as possible.
I've lived in San Jose a long time and since 1993 I have lived 5 minutes away from three different Home Depots. Capital Expressway, Camden, and now Curtner/The Plant. Unless you live way up in the foothills, or on the border of South San Jose there's a Home Depot less than 20 minutes away.
Dang, grab those plants in the front of the building, that is food growing there! Why stand so close to a building on fire with explosives and toxic material just to get a video?
I was thinking about the 100's of products that would burn easily. Paint, solvents, wood, paint thinner and so on. There would be no way they could put it out.
Hopefully the surveillance footage is recorded offsite, so they can see who did it. If it's on site, then they'll never catch the criminal unless a store employee or customer saw something.
It’s sure is funny how a store like this can burn with the sprinkler systems installed! Sprinklers are effective if installed correctly! I hope their camera surveillance system transmitted to outside facility! Also I hope every customer and associate got out safe and no firefighters were injured too! Prosecute the ones who started this fire please!
@@MsArtistwannabe Yeah, the acid stuff mixed with other crap, sprinklers are not going to do sh*t. I used to work at HD, pallets upon pallets of that crap
My prayers to all my fellow associates in San Jose from your Porterville HD (1080). We are all praying for you and glad to hear that reports say that everyone made it out safely. That’s great news. But all our prayers go out to you. We will be looking to help in any way possible. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Associates? I think in all the yrs I’ve gone to Home Depot, the amount of help that I have gotten could be counted on one hand, with 3 fingers missing. You people don’t know crap about your stores.
Associates? I think in all the yrs I’ve gone to Home Depot, the amount of help that I have gotten could be counted on one hand, with 3 fingers missing. You people don’t know crap about your stores
@@user-rb1yf4he9q wow! So a Store burns down to the ground (luckily nobody got hurt or died) and instead of sympathy all you can comment is this? Really? Wow! You need a lesson in manners. Wise up!
@@user-rb1yf4he9q such a thoughtful thing to say after a store burns down to the ground! People will be out jobs and customers will be out things they need but yet you felt it necessary during this time of tragedy to offer up your opinion. Hmmm so how does this make you feel? Do you feel special now that you made your insane comment? Does it Feel good to make fun of a terrible situation? So tell me if your house burnt down would you want people commenting on how they could careless? Have some compassion would you! Be glad that nobody got injured or died. Geez man you act like you’re happy this happened! Totally uncalled for comment in this situation!
Amen. When CA starts letting violent felons out with a slap on the wrist (looking at you Sacramento) stuff like this is going to start happening a lot more. We don’t have any sort of justice system in this state anymore, we’re essentially the Wild West, which is exactly what the Democrats want.
I think we can call that a totally involved structure, fire department using containment methods only, no saving that building. Wonder if we will ever find out the origin of the fire, most comments refer to possible arson? Once the paint department gets heated up you have a lot of flammables.
Yep, paint, thinners, metho, oils, cleaning products now add everything for pools, chlorine etc. Timber. On top of all that, add the timber shelving and pallets up in high rise within the store and I reckon it will burn till there is nothing left except the concrete outer walls........................ twisted metal inside.
@Me Me I think if you look at the film footage it seems to have travelled sideways. Radiant heat will heat up what's next to it and burst it into flames and the next and the next etc
@Me Me Each fire sprinkler fire head has a glass vial in it and bursts when it gets hot enough....... But these are a good 40 foot in the air, so by the time they burst the fire is going pretty well already. The sprinklers are good when their down low like in a low roof area.
and I think they use wood pallets to stack the paints and almost everything in the store, and they are very close to each other. So once one of them start burning the fire will spread up and sideways
@@weekenderfam7965 Yep, all products are stored on pallets next to each other so it can be moved around easily and that also goes for putting them up in high racking. Although in our store U can't put flammable products in high rise. Fire would spread from pallet to pallet, from radiant heat. you just have to sit in front of a fire and feel the heat coming off the flames.
Name of Jesus Christ I pray for safety of all in this store and people around area. Paints and fertilizer and woods tiles so lots of chemical s to be hazardous and don't breathe Air! Toxins in Area! I pray for containment I this situation of fire . Very unusual situation seems like deliberately destroyed!!! Safety issues always intact . Something must have been unusual in this situation! I say this as former employee in another state . Very safety conscious ! That's why I know. Thank you firefighter s for your work .
I hate to see this happen. Best of luck to all in the recovery efforts. In the video I saw no tower ladders attacking the fire from above. I watch FDNY response videos and a five alarm fire such as that would have a number of tower ladders surrounding the structure and pouring it on. Just thinking out loud.
The difference is this building is already a total loss in this video, and its an open area. Any department, even FDNY will let it burn to the ground. But the FDNY seldomly has an open area around a fire. This type of fire is full of oils, paints, other chemicals, wood (etc) so surround and drown won't work. Some of the chemicals in there could very well react negatively to water. The general rule of thumb for any fire department is a fire is out of control, full of hazards material, an open area, and has a threat to collapse, they'll let it burn. Its just safer
Looks like the sprinklers didn't contain this one. Contrary to the other comments, if sprinkler heads are large enough, and placed close enough together, they will contain a fire, BUT, the local FD must arrive in a timely manner and hopefully get a 2.5" line on it quickly. There is a video somewhere on RU-vid that shows this exact scenario. The local FD was able to knock a fire down in a Home Depot with two 1.75" lines.
The insurance company will tell you they are "The good Hand People" as they are taking your premiums. When have a fire and want to collect on the damages to rebuild the insurance company will only give you the finger.
No way a sprinkler system can stop pallets and pallets of deadly acid mixed with other stuff, especially they stored that stuff in outside garden. Or, heaven forbid next to each other inside. I used to work at HD, people would get written up and fired on the spot for that. Mostly forklift drivers
What makes you think a little sprinkler system that dumps no more than 500 gallons of water would be able to stop it if multiple fire trucks dumping thousands of gallons of water didn’t contain the chemical fire? Go back to school and pay attention in the chemistry classes 😂 Tesla cars burn for hours because of the lithium battery reacting with air.
@@mokokoco4720 Have you ever seen a sprinkler system work? They are capable of subduing a fire because they engage because either the rise in temperature or smoke is detected. I am a former Grocery director where one of the companies stores paper towel section was started by an arsonist and I’m the next aisle the summer promo aisles had small bottle propane bottles and display of charcoal lighter fluids plus charcoals with fluid on them and the sprinkler system put out the fire!
That is 60 million dollar store. With all that inventory lost. Prayers to the workers and hope HD will take care of their employees with the Homer Fund program
Sprinkler systems are a joke, and it's really meant for small fires w/o fuel to sustain. When you got a large fire with plenty of material to burn, the sprinkler system will be overwhelm easily.
Bobby, normally if something happens like that the staff get allocated to other stores to keep those people employed until the store gets rebuilt. I bet their pulling out the plans for the store as we speak getting quotes to rebuild it............................
That's the Home Depot I always used to shop at (my Parent's Home Depot). Unlimited fuel. Probably $100 Million+ going up in smoke including the building.
how in the hell did that happen?? fully sprinklered building... either some renovations caused it, , electrical,or an attic fire that got out of hand..
I wish that I could have hired all of the experts commenting on the root cause of the fire and the installation of a sprinkler system. When designing a system the code sets standards for design based in precieved hazards. Many of these standards are based on actual fire data and fire modeling like designed by NIST. Many fires are suppressed prior to the FD arrival. There are those where human error played a part in the sprinkler system failure. Many times we found valves turned off in the street or in the actual structure. In cases employees placed items that were too close to the head preventing the heat from triggering the activation. The industry benchmark for design and installation of automatic fire sprinkler systems, NFPA 13 addresses sprinkler system design approaches, system installation, and component options to prevent fire deaths and property loss. Much work is needed to determine the reason why the fire resulted in a conflagration so quick. All Home Depot warehouses are provided with fire sprinklers based on NFPA 13.
I'm surprised that the Fire Department didn't order spectators further back from that inferno, considering that with paint, solvents, plastics, electronics, etc.... that those fumes could be toxic, as well as the potential risk of explosions?! I wonder if nearby homes or businesses were also evacuated as a precaution? 🤔
They r still investigating the cause. I've heard it started in the lumber section but I don't understand how it got from the back of the store to the front so fast w/o other customers or employees not seeing or smelling it. One customer, on the news, said she smelled it right away when she walked in. 🤷♀️
The fire is so big, there is virtually nothing they can do (ie. making an interior attack). The entire store will be burned down (or most of it least).
First arriving units went inside with 2.5” handlines. When the building began to collapse the Chief in charge shifted strategy to defensive. You risk lives to save lives. At that point everyone was out except the firefighters.
Don't worry, they will have the plans out for that store and getting quotes to rebuild it as it is burning to the ground................... I bets it's going again in 12 months.
