{"id":716427,"date":"2026-04-09T19:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/716427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T19:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:45:14","slug":"ontario-warehouse-arson-suspect-posted-live-video-showing-fire-igniting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/716427\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario warehouse arson suspect posted live video showing fire igniting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The suspect in a massive blaze at an Ontario warehouse<\/a> posted videos that appeared to show him lighting the fire and griping about being paid low wages, according to video reviewed by The Times.<\/p>\n

Crews responded to the 1.2-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark paper products facility early Tuesday and were quickly forced out due to \u201cextremely rapid fire growth,\u201d according to the Ontario Fire Department.<\/p>\n

The fire caused the building\u2019s roof to collapse and escalated to a six-alarm blaze, requiring the response of around 175 firefighters and the evacuation of about 20 employees.<\/p>\n

Ontario Police Cpl. Emily Williams told KTLA-TV Channel 5 that police were investigating the video. \u201cWe have had reports that he did give some information on social media,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Chamel Abdulkarim, 29, of Highland was arrested in connection with the blaze, according to authorities. Abdulkarim was employed by NFI Industries, a third-party distribution company for Kimberly-Clark products, fire officials said.<\/p>\n

On his non-public Facebook page, Abdulkarim had shared several first-person videos in which a man \u2014 presumably Abdulkarim \u2014 is seen lighting fires in a warehouse. Alex Montero, who said he met Abdulkarim in the warehouse that night, obtained screen recordings of the videos by way of a mutual friend on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, if you\u2019re not going to pay us enough … to afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this,\u201d the man says while lighting a roll of toilet paper on fire.<\/p>\n

In a subsequent video, the person filming continued to light fires as radios in the background relay fire reports and evacuation instructions to employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll you had to do is pay us enough to live,\u201d the narrator says as the camera focuses on several stacks of paper products beginning to catch fire. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere goes your inventory,\u201d he says in a final video as the flames began to spread out of control.<\/p>\n

The Ontario Police Department did not immediately respond to questions from The Times about the videos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was him that posted himself doing it,\u201d Montero wrote in an email to The Times, referring to the videos. \u201cIf not, I wouldn\u2019t have put it out there like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Times staff writers Clara Harter and Joseph Serna contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The suspect in a massive blaze at an Ontario warehouse posted videos that appeared to show him lighting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":716428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[297754,297756,13941,3537,34563,5025,297759,7217,297757,50,297758,297755,7207,1630,637,67,132,68,989],"class_list":["post-716427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-chamel-abdulkarim","tag-emily-williams","tag-employee","tag-evacuation","tag-facebook-page","tag-fire","tag-kimberly-clark-product","tag-live-video","tag-massive-blaze","tag-news","tag-ontario-fire-department","tag-ontario-warehouse-arson-suspect","tag-police","tag-report","tag-times","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116376471211705013","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}