Man arrested in fire that burned storage units in Newport Beach
A 47-year-old man was arrested Monday in connection with a fire that burned about 40 storage units and injured two people in Newport Beach this month.
Newport police arrested Albert Eugene Faulk at 8:15 a.m. in Santa Ana on suspicion of unlawfully causing a fire to an inhabited structure. Detectives suspect that Faulk, whose last known address was in Anaheim, was occupying one of the storage units at the time of the fire.
Police said Faulk was one of two people injured in the blaze, which caused a plume of smoke that could be seen for miles. It was not immediately clear how the fire started.
The four-alarm blaze was reported at about 2:30 a.m. Nov. 11 in the 800 block of Production Place, an industrial area near Hoag Hospital.
Sixty-six firefighters from the Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach fire departments knocked down the bulk of the fire within two hours, authorities said.
A Newport Beach firefighter was injured during a follow-up investigation, authorities said. He received medical attention and has returned to work, according to police.
Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
