Wine Warehouse Fire Cause Still a Mystery
Chris Rauber
San Francisco Business Times
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Vallejo, CA (United States):
Federal officials said Thursday they're investigating the cause of a huge Vallejo warehouse fire believed to have destroyed or damaged as much as $100 million of stored vintage wines and other food materials.
Some rare bottles may have been worth about $1,000 each, officials said, and C&H Sugar lost an estimated $2.1 million of its sugar inventory.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' National Response Team, along with ATF special agents from San Francisco and Sacramento, will investigate the Wines Central LLC warehouse fire on Mare Island, which erupted Wednesday afternoon. The City of Vallejo Fire Department requested aid from federal investigators due to the size of the blaze and scope of the damage.
"ATF will continue to work with our state and local partners in processing the scene to determine the cause and origin of the fire," said Paul Vido, special agent in charge of the agency's San Francisco field division.
Wines Central converted an old military warehouse into a 240,000-square-foot facility that stored an estimated half a million cases of wine, including rare vintages and in some cases entire inventories for dozens of Bay Area wineries and private individual collectors.
The facility also stored other food items, including sugar, pasta and pasta sauce, for C&H Sugar and the Neibaum-Coppola Winery.
Because the fire broke out in a former Navy warehouse with thick concrete walls and steel doors, some observers suspect arson, but officials had not pinpointed the fire's cause as of late morning Friday. "It's suspicious, but we're not classifying it as arson," said Bill Tweedy, a Vallejo Fire Department spokesman.
Oct 14, 2005
Chris Rauber
San Francisco Business Times
___________________
Vallejo, CA (United States):
Federal officials said Thursday they're investigating the cause of a huge Vallejo warehouse fire believed to have destroyed or damaged as much as $100 million of stored vintage wines and other food materials.
Some rare bottles may have been worth about $1,000 each, officials said, and C&H Sugar lost an estimated $2.1 million of its sugar inventory.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' National Response Team, along with ATF special agents from San Francisco and Sacramento, will investigate the Wines Central LLC warehouse fire on Mare Island, which erupted Wednesday afternoon. The City of Vallejo Fire Department requested aid from federal investigators due to the size of the blaze and scope of the damage.
"ATF will continue to work with our state and local partners in processing the scene to determine the cause and origin of the fire," said Paul Vido, special agent in charge of the agency's San Francisco field division.
Wines Central converted an old military warehouse into a 240,000-square-foot facility that stored an estimated half a million cases of wine, including rare vintages and in some cases entire inventories for dozens of Bay Area wineries and private individual collectors.
The facility also stored other food items, including sugar, pasta and pasta sauce, for C&H Sugar and the Neibaum-Coppola Winery.
Because the fire broke out in a former Navy warehouse with thick concrete walls and steel doors, some observers suspect arson, but officials had not pinpointed the fire's cause as of late morning Friday. "It's suspicious, but we're not classifying it as arson," said Bill Tweedy, a Vallejo Fire Department spokesman.
Oct 14, 2005
