Kevin Stevens
February 2nd, 2001, 10:08 PM
Filed: 02/02/2001
The Bakersfield Californian
A fire caused an estimated $200,000 damage to the Southern Pacific Freight Station building Friday morning, Bakersfield Fire Department officials said.
Capt. Ed Watts said at 3:19 a.m. the BFD received a call from a witness who noticed a red glow inside the building while passing by.
The 3-alarm fire took 50 firefighters more than two hours to put out.
Watts said that although vacant, the building was intact prior to the fire. Afterward, however, the roof had been burned off as well as nearly a full side of the approximately 19,000-square-foot building.
The Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office had purchased the building in 1998 to relocate programs when it sold the Blair Learning Center at Belle Terrace and P Street to the Bakersfield City School District. In October last year the Kern County Board of Education declared it as surplus property to be sold because the office bought the Sandstone property on Truxtun Avenue, said Jim Varley, spokesman for the superintendent's office.
Watts said there are suspicions of Arson, but that the exact cause is still under investigation.
The Bakersfield Californian
A fire caused an estimated $200,000 damage to the Southern Pacific Freight Station building Friday morning, Bakersfield Fire Department officials said.
Capt. Ed Watts said at 3:19 a.m. the BFD received a call from a witness who noticed a red glow inside the building while passing by.
The 3-alarm fire took 50 firefighters more than two hours to put out.
Watts said that although vacant, the building was intact prior to the fire. Afterward, however, the roof had been burned off as well as nearly a full side of the approximately 19,000-square-foot building.
The Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office had purchased the building in 1998 to relocate programs when it sold the Blair Learning Center at Belle Terrace and P Street to the Bakersfield City School District. In October last year the Kern County Board of Education declared it as surplus property to be sold because the office bought the Sandstone property on Truxtun Avenue, said Jim Varley, spokesman for the superintendent's office.
Watts said there are suspicions of Arson, but that the exact cause is still under investigation.