San Jose Home Depot Fire: Neighbors Raise Questions About Sprinklers As Investigation Continues
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) – Firefighters on Monday continued to monitor the smoldering and smoky ruins of a Home Depot store in South San Jose gutted by a massive fire Saturday night.
The inferno at the store on Blossom Hill Road could be seen for miles around and forced the evacuation of nearby homes and triggered and shelter-in-place order for surrounding neighborhoods.
"It obviously was a very big fire," said Diana Disney who watched the blaze and billowing black smoke from her home nearby.
Disney said she felt amazed and a bit uneasy with how quickly the fire spread and how intensely it burned. She questioned why fire suppression systems like smoke detectors and sprinklers weren't able to slow the fire down or stop it altogether.
"They have a lot of propane tanks in there. I shop there. I love that store. And I feel really bad for them what happened," she told KPIX 5.
The San Jose Fire Department said buildings like the Home Depot are required to have sprinkler systems. Investigators are working to determine if the sprinkler system was functioning properly at the time, but said Sunday it's possible for them to become overwhelmed and ineffective.
"With the amount of material in the building and the variety of material, there is tremendous potential for people to get burned, things to fall on people and thankfully that wasn't the case," said Battalion Chief Bennett Yendrey.
The fire department says there's still debris trapped under the collapsed roof of the building.
"It was pretty fast. And if the fire started in the lumber yard, it would spread pretty fast. Why they didn't have the sprinklers running or why they didn't work, that's the question everybody's asking right now," said neighbor Carlos Vinueza.
