Firefighters Contain Massive Blaze at Stockton Pallet Yard

Updated 9:30 a.m.

Scores of firefighters have contained a massive six-alarm fire in downtown Stockton at a pallet yard that's several city blocks long.

Stockton Fire Chief Erik Newman said one firefighter suffered neck and back injuries, but said he was in stable condition at a local hospital.

"We've got a very large footprint which involved buildings, pallets, wood," Newman said. "We also had a high-power tension line collapse."

That knocked out power to close to 20,000 PG&E customers in downtown Stockton, Newman said.

He said the Fire Department was working with PG&E on re-establishing power to the area.

The blaze began at approximately 3 a.m. and burned on West Scotts Avenue at California Pallets Co., several blocks southeast of where Interstate 5 and State Highway 4 come together.

Approximately 60 to 70 firefighters from six department tackled the blaze.

Newman said the cause of the fire is under investigation and that arson investigators are at the scene.

This fire follows a three-alarm blaze at a recycling plant at the Port of Stockton 12 hours earlier. Newman said his fire crews were doing well after responding to two blazes in a short period of time.

"They come to work every day," Newman said. "At one point a year and a half ago we were averaging six to eight structure fires a day. So our guys are well battle tested and they did a phenomenal job considering wind conditions, power lines being down, which made accessing the fire very difficult."

This post will be updated.

KQED's Ted Goldberg contributed to this post.