A fire burned down an inflatable bouncer and charred some hay at Pa’s Pumpkin Patch in Long Beach. The blaze broke out the night before the pumpkin patch was scheduled to open for the season.
Workers were cleaning up the blackened vegetation and laying down new tarps this morning at the lot on Pacific Coast Highway near Second Street. They planned to stay on schedule and open up later in the day, operational manager Zach Parnell said.
“It’s unclear what caused the issues,” he said, but the business is “taking every precaution” to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The flames sparked around 9 p.m. Thursday. An employee who stays overnight at the lot noticed and alerted Parnell, he said.
Video of smoke billowing from the pumpkin patch made the rounds on social media, but the flames were relatively small, according to Long Beach Fire Department spokesman Jake Heflin. It took only two engines to quickly douse the blaze, he said.
https://www.facebook.com/ktenny/videos/10219699162779830/
Fire officials didn’t immediately have information on what caused the fire.
A Facebook comment from Pa’s Pumpkin Patch said they suspected it was started by a homeless person, but Parnell said it could have also been an electrical issue or other undetermined cause.
“At this point, there’s no evidence pointing to what it was directly,” he said.
It doesn’t appear anyone was hurt.