{"id":267479,"date":"2026-04-14T15:39:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/267479\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:39:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:39:46","slug":"warehouse-fire-under-investigation-after-string-of-fires-in-southeast-bakersfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/267479\/","title":{"rendered":"Warehouse fire under investigation after string of fires in southeast Bakersfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 Unless you were inside all day Saturday, you likely saw black clouds of smoke rise from southeast Bakersfield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In fact, you could see the smoke billowing from a warehouse from Interstate 5 over the Grapevine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A fire from a huge warehouse lot on South Washington Street was visible for miles across Bakersfield this weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An issue that isn\u2019t new to this area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWell, we woke up and we just looked into the sky and we saw fire. Same looking fires that we\u2019ve seen in the past coming from this area,\u201d said Michael Hefler, a nearby resident close to the warehouse lot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The warehouse lot has seen at least three fires in the past two years, the most recent in January of last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link  yahoo-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/kern-county-jury-decide-fate-140514272.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Kern County jury to decide fate of alleged rapist after closing arguments;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Kern County jury to decide fate of alleged rapist after closing arguments&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Kern County jury to decide fate of alleged rapist after closing arguments <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cLoaded inside the building are large quantities of plastic recycling that are in big bales, and it\u2019s on fire, it\u2019s burning hot,\u201d said Jonathan Drucker with the Kern County Fire Department. Drucker was on scene of last year\u2019s fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The cause of this weekend\u2019s fire is still under investigation, but it seems the state of the lot hasn\u2019t changed much since the last blaze.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cNobody\u2019s in charge,\u201d said Hefler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">However, according to the latest deed associated with the property,\u00a0CalCot, a local cotton cooperative, sold warehouses to a company called Big Washington LLC in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The warehouses, still filled with bales of plastic, had sprinklers and proper fencing to minimize potential fire risks, but both have since been removed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">17 News has contacted Kern County Fire for more information.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Concerns of future fires and potential air pollution still persist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.&quot;}\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 Unless you were inside all day Saturday, you likely saw black clouds of smoke&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,116742,116743,28844,116741,6075,116740],"class_list":{"0":"post-267479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news","11":"tag-fire-risks","12":"tag-jonathan-drucker","13":"tag-kern-county-fire-department","14":"tag-michael-hefler","15":"tag-plastic-recycling","16":"tag-south-washington-street"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}