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Thief siphons gas from Red Cross van
| Friday, Jun 6 2008 4:13 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Jun 9 2008 8:22 AM
Someone stole 40 gallons of gas from a vehicle in the parking lot of the Kern chapter of the American Red Cross, delaying a response to the Frazier Park wildfire Friday.
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The disaster relief agency discovered the theft about 1 p.m. Friday when it was rushing to deliver supplies to wildfire victims. A van packed with water, cots, blankets and other supplies wouldn’t start even though the gas tank was full when the vehicle was parked, said chief executive Lorraine Castro. The agency had to fill up the tank using a gas can and then drive to a filling station to get enough fuel to respond to the wildfire and two other house fires.
“How bad is that?” Castro said later with indignant disbelief. “Isn’t it sad that we’re at this point in the state of gas prices that someone would resort to this?”
Castro suspects the gas was siphoned overnight some time between last Saturday, when the van was parked in a locked, fenced parking lot at 5035 Gilmore Ave., and Friday, when the theft was discovered. At the time, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department was evacuating homes near the Frazier Park fire, which has burned more than 500 acres.
The thief or thieves damaged the interior rubber hose to the tank, so in addition to the cost of replacing the fuel, the nonprofit group will have to foot the bill for the vehicle’s repair, Castro said.