Rubber mulch caught fire, burned for about 20 minutes before fire dept showed up. The smell was terrible, but store stayed open because the wind blew it all away from the store.

SAN JOSE — Home Depot will pay $1.3 million after an investigation found that a bevy of fire code violations, including non-functioning sprinklers, helped a 2022 arson fire completely destroy a South San Jose store and pollute the air for several days in surrounding neighborhoods, authorities said.

That dollar amount includes $850,000 in civil penalties and $150,000 that will go toward fire prevention education and outreach in the South Bay, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. It was the DA’s Bureau of Investigations that examined reported failures in fire-suppression systems at the home-improvement giant’s Blossom Hill Road location, which was leveled by fast-moving flames on April 9, 2022.

“Fire code violations are potential tragedies in waiting. Ignoring them isn’t just risky; it’s reckless,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “It risks far more than property. It risks lives.”

An investigation, which was headed by the San Jose Fire Department and grew to include the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, determined that the fire was deliberately set in the store’s lumber section. Dyllin Jaycruz Gogue, 29, has been charged with arson and is being held without bail in the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas, though his case has remained in an early plea-entering stage in the two years since.

Full story from the Mercury News (gift link)