Harris Farms is at the center of an arson investigation. Around 4:00 Sunday morning, the Coalinga-based company had more than a dozen of its trucks and several trailers catch fire while parked at an equipment yard. Investigators believe it was done intentionally.Harris Farms is one of the nation's largest family owned agri-businesses, so luckily it can withstand this type of damage. Nevertheless, the company is now deeply concerned as to who would want target them with such an awful act.
A look through the fence of the Harris Farms feed lot, located near Interstate 5 and Highway 145 in Coalinga, shows several of the company's semi-trucks completely melted to the ground. All were hooked up to cattle hauling trailers at the time.
“The 14 tractors were a total loss. The Harris Farms people are going to look at the trailers attached and see which ones they can salvage, but I think some of those will be a loss also,” said Chris Curtice of the Fresno Co. Sheriff’s Dept.
It took firefighters 45 minutes to extinguish the flames. Afterwards, investigators ruled this to be a case of arson.
“We haven't released anything on why we believe it's arson, but there are several factors so far. None of which I can get into right now,” said Curtice.
We spoke with Harris Farms Vice President of Human Resources about the destruction.
“Well obviously it's troubling that anyone would do this to us or any other company,” said Mike Casey, Harris Farms Vice President of Human Resources.
Despite the loss of part of their fleet, Harris Farms won't suffer any setback due to the fact it had a contingency plan in place.
“We have subcontracted equipment being delivered and scheduled already, so we should have pretty much zero interruption in our operations. We're ready for business tomorrow morning,” said Casey.
When we asked Casey if he has any suspicions of who did this he said he would not comment because it's an ongoing investigation.
