A truck driver says he and several other drivers are out of work after an unexplained fire at a lot in California destroyed multiple semi trucks on Monday morning.
The fire started at a Wilbur Way storage yard on May 16th in Sacramento, California.
Trucker Harvinder Pahal, who lost his rig in the fire, says that he’s been a driver for 25 years, and has been parking his truck in the lot since 2014.
“I came at 4:15 a.m. in the yard,” Pahal said to ABC 10. “I talked to the security guard, I said, ‘What happened?’ He told me we have a fire in the back side. When I go there, I see my truck — I said, ‘Oh my God! Everything is running in the mind. There’s two pickup trucks also — total five trucks [burned].”
65-year-old Pahal says that, without his truck, he’s out of work. He says that the rig is paid off and insured, but that collecting insurance money could take weeks, and he needs to be making money now.
“That’s the only one truck I have, so I can’t go to work now so it’s hurting me.”
Pahal says that his kids are helping him financially for now, and he’s already searching for a new truck, but the future seems uncertain for him and other drivers who lost their livelihoods in the still unexplained fire.
Another driver told KCRA 3 that he borrowed money against his home to pay off his truck, which was burned in the fire. He says he is now in a similar situation as Pahal, and is also worried about the future.
“It’s the hard part. Now, we have to look at the truck. I don’t know how much it’s gonna be, or how much we have to spend more money on it. It’s a little hard for me.”
The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District is still investigating the cause of the fire.