The blaze began in the early hours of Nov. 11 in a storage yard beneath the freeway containing wood pallets, vehicles and even containers of hand sanitizer. The fire quickly spread to a second yard and eventually consumed eight acres.
An investigation by California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) concluded that the fire was set intentionally
UserBronco, a regular reader and commentor (Hi! Thanks!) reminded me that a similar fire happened under 100 feet of Interstate 85 in Atlanta in 2017, causing a section to collapse, because a crackhead with 20 prior arrests started a fire in a construction storage area
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-charged-arson-fire-led-collapse-atlanta-highway/story?id=46515096
I usually don't have very nice things to say about the way California is governed or their spending policies. One of my common rants, every time I'm in California, involves their choice of design for most of their urban bridge structures. The Cast-In-Place Post Tensioned Concrete Box Girder is by far the most expensive, non-signature bridge, to design and build by a huge margin. That being said - If all Caltrans has to do is replace is a few columns and patch some concrete, then that design choice was a big win. Every other type of bridge design would be laying on the ground. (I am amazed that the heat didn't affect the elasticity of the PT strands in the bottom slab though)
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