5-alarm Home Depot fire in San Jose raises fire safety questions

San Jose firefighters to investigate what destroyed Home Depot

It took six hours to extinguish a huge fire that destroyed a Home Depot store in San Jose and now arson investigators will begin scouring the site to see what caused the blaze.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - It took San Jose and mutual aid firefighters more than six hours to get a San Jose Home Depot fire under control just before midnight on Sunday – at its peak 110 crews were battling the 5-alarm blaze.

The fire was reported on Saturday evening about 5:30 p.m. inside the store on Blossom Hill Road near Oakridge Mall, and the acrid smoke and flames continued to smolder enough to make passersby cough. The fire was reported near the lumber department.

Like all such facilities, the store contains a toxic smorgasbord of plastics, paints, pesticides, solvents, glues and chemical that emit toxins smoke and fumes when ignited.

One of the most perplexing and important questions that arson investigators are going to have to answer is: How can it be, with such a big building that has so many fire suppression systems, how could ot burn almost completely to the ground?

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"Certainly that will be part of the investigative process as to how did the fire's progression reach with the fire control engineering of this building," said San Jose Fire Battalion Chief Bennett Yendrey. "With the amount of material in this building and the variety of material, there's tremendous potential for people to get burned, for things to fall on people,"

Patrons and employees, running for their lives fled the building to evacuate from the quick spreading fire, very fortunately resulting in no injuries.

"It was just exploding," Bruce Maton said. "One after another, Balloon! Balloon! And every time it exploded, we had to duck down behind the wall. It was very intense."

Surrounding neighbors were advised to shelter-in-place with doors and windows closed.

"It was that bad. I was having breathing problems at the end of the night from this smoke," Matson said.

A nearby pet hospital was evacuated with police quickly getting the animals out uninjured.

The near total damage left customers and contractors alike suffering from the loss.

Tony Orozco is a professional handy man who used this Home Depot as his go-to supplier.

"For me, it's going to be just devastating," Orozco said. "I know for other contractors also. It's going to hurt them. What I like about this Home Deport, they hire people with experience."

An arson team will move into the debris sometime Monday, where the real work of finding the cause will be done.