MARICOPA, Ariz.—Maricopa Food Pantry CEO Jim Shoaf said the devastating pantry fire on March 28 couldn’t have come at a worse time of peak demand and concerns over food shortages.
The electrical fire started at noon inside an old battery-powered pallet jack. Six parked trailers and 48,000 pounds of storage food lay in smoldering ruins by sunset.
“Once it went up, it went up,” Shoaf said. “We lost everything but the box truck, two forklifts, and one pallet jack. It just spread from trailer to trailer. Every trailer we had was filled with diesel. I had 600 gallons of diesel on this property.”
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