Police arrested an Anaheim man Monday on suspicion of arson following a large fire that badly damaged a Newport Beach storage facility earlier this month, officials said.
Authorities believe 47-year-old Anaheim resident Albert Eugene Faulk sparked the Nov. 11 structure fire in the 800 block of Production Place, where he occupied one of the storage units at the time, according to a statement from the Newport Beach Police Department.
The blaze broke out at 2:37 a.m. and quickly escalated to four-alarm fire, officials said, and it took the 66 firefighters who responded from three agencies two hours to extinguish. Personnel arrived to find roughly 40 outdoor storage units fully engulfed in flames, according to the Newport Beach Fire Department.
Several explosions are heard in a video taken from the scene as firefights were responding, which NBFD Assistant Chief Chip Duncan told KTLA were likely due to ammunition, aerosol cans, gasoline and radiator fluid.
All damage was confined to these structures, which consisted of converted carports surrounded by chain-link fencing, officers said.
Two individuals, including the arrestee, were injured during the fire, police said, but did not provide details on who the other person was. No firefighters were harmed during the fire; although one was injured during follow-up investigation, he has since returned to work, officials said.
Following an arson investigation by the Newport Beach police and fire departments, Faulk was arrested in Santa Ana around 8:15 a.m. Monday on suspicion of unlawfully causing a fire to an inhabited structure. There are no outstanding suspects, authorities said.
