Arson suspect charged in fire at California Kimberly-Clark warehouse
The arson suspect who was arrested for allegedly starting a fire that decimated a 1.2 million square-foot Kimberly-Clark paper goods warehouse in Ontario earlier this week was charged by prosecutors on Thursday.
Chamel Abdulkarim, 29, was taken into custody on Tuesday after he was determined to be the suspect in the fire, which was reported at around 12:30 a.m. at the massive warehouse in the 9500 block of Merrill Avenue on Tuesday, April 7.
He was charged with one count of aggravated arson and six counts of arson of a structure or forest land, all of which are felonies, according to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office. Abdulkarim was initially scheduled for arraignment at the Rancho Cucamonga courthouse on Thursday, but prosecutors pushed the hearing until Friday as they reviewed the case.
The blaze forced 20 employees to evacuate from the warehouse, all of whom were accounted for except Abdulkarim, who was employed at the location as an employee for NFI Industries, which works as a third-party distributor for Kimberly-Clark. Investigators said that they believed the fire was "suspicious in nature" upon arrival, and determined that Abdulkarim was a suspect due to several calls they received at the time the fire broke out.
He was booked on multiple felony arson-related charges and was being held at the West Valley Detention Center without bail following his arrest, Ontario Police Department officers said on Tuesday.
In a social media video that appeared to show Abdulkarim igniting the blaze, holding a lighter to various pallets of paper products at the warehouse, he can be heard saying, "All you had to do was pay us enough to live. ... There goes your inventory."
Due to the amount of paper goods being stored at the facility, including brands like Kleenex, Huggies, Kotex, Scott and Cottonelle, the fire burned quickly and ferociously, complicating the firefight for Ontario Fire Department crews. It took hours for crews to finally extinguish the flames, and the warehouse was still smoldering as late as Wednesday evening, prompting an air quality warning for the surrounding area.