Los Angeles firefighters say fires inside Amazon cargo containers on trains are connected to theft
Los Angeles Fire Department investigators say that a pair of fires that broke out inside Amazon cargo containers being hauled through downtown Los Angeles in back-to-back weeks are possibly connected to a theft operation.
The first blaze was reported at around 5:20 a.m. on Thursday, April 9 as the train moved through the Union Pacific rail yard near the 3900 block of E. Valley Boulevard, according to LAFD crews. They said that it took just over an hour to fully extinguish the flames, which had engulfed dozens of Amazon packages.
Despite being aware of the fire, crews said that the train's engineer continued to drive the train into the rail yard so that they could easily access the container and extinguish the flames.
The second fire happened nearly a week after the first, on Tuesday, April 14, in nearly the same spot, at around 5:45 a.m. Similar to the first incident, the train was pulled into the rail yard, near the 500 block of Mission Road, where LAFD crews got to work extinguishing the flames.
In this instance, LAFD said that a crane would be used to move the container to the ground so that they could "facilitate full extinguishment."
Aerial footage from both scenes showed large flames inside the Amazon containers, each of which had one door ajar as crews used firehoses to douse the inside.
A Union Pacific spokesperson said that there were no injuries reported in either incident and that the Union Pacific Police Department and LAFD were investigating the fires.
LAFD investigators said that they believe the two fires are connected to a larger theft operation, noting that the repeat instances was "strange" considering the shared location, timing and circumstances.