Inferno of illegal fireworks burns building to ground, California cops say. Two arrested

Two men have been arrested after illegal fireworks ignited in a self storage unit and created a fire, California officials said.

On June 14, police responded to calls of a “large fire” at a Public Storage in southeast San Jose, according to a June 30 news release by the San Jose Police Department.

Officials said the blaze happened after illegal fireworks went off in a storage unit.

Witnesses reported the scene looked like “something out of a “Call of Duty” video game,” KRON reported.

Due to the mass of the fire, the entire unit burned down and the things stored inside were “unsalvageable,” officials said.

A couple with an 8-year-old daughter who were storing their items before moving from the South Bay to Sacramento lost everything, KRON reported.

Telling the child “the day before her birthday party that everything was gone was the hardest day of my life,” the father said.

“The cause of the actual fire is still unknown,” Sgt. Jorge Garibay told CBS News.

An investigation by San Jose’s fire and police departments led to other storage units containing 38,000 pounds of illegal fireworks, as well as methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, $4,800 in cash and a semi-automatic gun, the release said.

Two men, age 45 and 25, were arrested and booked into Santa Clara County Jail, CBS News reported.

San Jose is 50 miles southeast of San Francisco.

This story was originally published July 3, 2023 at 2:01 PM with the headline "Inferno of illegal fireworks burns building to ground, California cops say. Two arrested."