Authorities on Tuesday said that a man accused of lighting a fire that ended up destroying a Home Depot — and also blanketed a South San Jose neighborhood in noxious smoke and burned so hot that it triggered weather satellites — was trying to create a diversion while he made off with a cart full of stolen tools.
But the blaze quickly grew into a conflagration and forced hundreds to flee the store and nearby homes, in turn raising questions about the condition and fitness of the building’s fire sprinkler and alarm systems, most of which remain unanswered.
SAN JOSE, CA – APRIL 19: Dyllin Jaycruz Gogue is shown in a photographed during a press conference announcing he has been charged with felony arson and other charges on Tuesday, April 19, 2022, in San Jose, Calif. Gogue is alleged to have set fire to a Home Depot store on Blossom Hill Road while trying to steal tools. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Dyllin Jaycruz Gogue, 27, of San Jose, is accused of intentionally igniting the five-alarm blaze that erupted on April 9 in the lumber section of the Home Depot at 920 Blossom Hill Road. He has been charged with three counts of arson, seven counts of grand theft and three counts of petty theft, which carry a sentence of 14 years to life in prison if he is convicted on all the alleged crimes.
“I’m thankful that my office — the DA’s office — is not prosecuting a multiple murder case today,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “Miraculously no one was hurt … But it came close — far, far too close — to causing many injuries and deaths.”
Mayor Sam Liccardo further emphasized the mortal danger that the city avoided thanks to the quick response of more than 100 city firefighters, and lauded the San Jose police investigation that led to Gogue’s arrest.
“This was a fire that could be detected from outer space and within feet of hundreds of homes, Steinbeck Elementary School and many many other sensitive locations in our city,” Liccardo said. “I am grateful that this is only an arson and theft investigation.”
Investigators say Gogue lit the fire before attempting to flee the store with a full shopping cart full. He was stopped by an employee and took off in a waiting vehicle, Rosen said. The investigation also alleges that Gogue had stolen merchandise from a nearby Bass Pro Shops store prior to the fire and that after leaving the scene he went on to steal from an East Bay Macy’s store.
Gogue was arrested Friday, booked into the Elmwood men’s jail where he is being held without bail, and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.
Court records show he has a minor criminal history in Santa Clara County, most of which surfaced in the first few months of this year.
Gogue was charged with misdemeanor battery in March 2021 after being arrested in Campbell three months earlier. On Jan 21, he was arrested in Sunnyvale and later charged with petty theft. He was arrested again on March 5 in Sunnyvale, and four days later he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of petty theft and being under the influence of a controlled substance. For that conviction, he was sentenced to a year of probation and was ordered to stay away from the store. On March 30, he was arrested in San Jose and two days later was again charged with petty theft.
The arson charges involve the fire at the Home Depot as well as fire damage to two adjacent homes. None of the grand theft and petty theft charges filed Tuesday are connected to those past cases, or to the thefts alleged on the day of the fire. The new theft charges span from October 2021 to April 2, involving half a dozen retailers in South San Jose and more than $17,000 worth of items.
Prior to the Home Depot incident, Gogue was not known to be connected to any other fires in the area.
The fire at the South San Jose home improvement store was first reported to dispatchers by Home Depot employees and patrons at about 5:30 p.m. on April 9.
The hefty plume of black and gray smoke that it emitted high into the sky could be seen across the South Bay and even as far as Santa Cruz, according to some accounts. In addition to Home Depot, evacuations were issued for neighboring businesses and about 15 residents whose homes’ backyards abutted the rear of the Home Depot store.
It took firefighters six hours to get the blaze under control. Investigators have estimated the fire caused $17 million in inventory loss, in addition to tens of millions in structural damage to the building.
“When someone commits a terrible act of this magnitude that endangers many, our people spring into action to save lives — and that’s what our police department and first responders did that day,” police Chief Anthony Mata said.
Customers and employees who were at the Home Depot when flames were first reported have raised questions about why the store’s fire alarms apparently did not sound until nearly everyone was out of the building and whether the store’s sprinklers ever activated.
Records recently obtained by this news organization reveal that several notable fire code violations were discovered over the past two years at the 98,000-square-foot Home Depot store at 920 Blossom Hill Road.
On May 19, 2020, San Jose’s Bureau of Fire Prevention found that the store was not maintaining a proper amount of clearance between the ceiling, where the sprinkler system was secured, and storage. Inspectors also instructed Home Depot officials to “secure insulation hanging from the ceiling.”
The records suggest that San Jose fire officials were tasked with re-inspecting the code violation at least 23 times and that it was not marked as remedied until Oct. 26, 2021, or 17 months after the violations were first reported.
During another inspection in December 2020, San Jose fire inspectors noted that the Home Depot store had failed to provide documentation of annual inspections of the fire alarm and sprinkler systems. The city’s Bureau of Fire Prevention instructed the managers to provide such documentation or service its sprinkler system “ASAP.”
The San Jose Fire Department said the violations were both remedied in January 2021 when the stores’ managers submitted documentation of recent inspections.
A subsequent hazmat inspection on Oct. 5, 2021 — the last time the site was examined by safety officials — uncovered an additional violation regarding an inadequate amount of workspace for electrical service equipment. That violation was remedied on Oct. 26, 2021, which was the same date that the ceiling clearance issue was fixed, the inspection report indicates.
San Jose Fire Chief Robert Sapien Jr. said Tuesday that his department was still working to determine whether the fire alarms and sprinkler system were operating properly when the fire broke out. Sapien said investigators are also still looking into whether any of the previous code violations contributed to how quickly the flames were able to decimate the entire store.
“It is difficult without all of the information yet available to say how exactly this fire was precisely lit and then how quickly it spread,” Sapien said. “It is possible that there are enough combustibles in an area to overcome what the ratings of fire protection systems are, so it is possible to have a fire like this in a protected structure.”