Officials Probe Cause of Warehouse Blaze
Authorities are investigating whether a fire in a videotape warehouse that began late Tuesday night and continued to burn through Wednesday was deliberately set.
The fire was reported about 10:50 p.m. Tuesday at the Technicolor building, 1500 E. 3rd St. The blaze spread among boxes of videotapes in the 88,000-square-foot warehouse and continued to burn late Wednesday, authorities said.
No one was injured, and Technicolor representatives said no employees were in the warehouse at the time of the fire. The section that was burned is adjacent to two other businesses that occupy the 500,000-square-foot building, but the fire did not spread to other areas of the building.
Portions of 3rd Street were closed Wednesday morning when winds pushed smoke into traffic.
Officials were still unsure Wednesday what caused the fire, but said they were looking into several possibilities, including arson.
Building tenants said the warehouse had video surveillance cameras, which may help investigators determine the cause. As of Wednesday afternoon, no damage estimates to the building and its inventory had been released.
The warehouse stored older video titles, and shipment of current home video releases to customers shouldn’t be affected, Technicolor officials said.
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