California hires guards to monitor businessman’s other sites under I-10 after freeway fire

More than a month after an arson fire at a storage yard damaged a key Los Angeles freeway, the state has hired security guards to watch out for smoke and other trouble at three additional sites beneath Interstate 10 that were leased to the same bankrupt businessman. Associated Press journalists visited the properties and saw wooden pallets and other hazardous and flammable material much like what fed the Nov. 11 inferno under the freeway, which is used by 300,000 vehicles daily. The state has subcontracted the security services as it fights to evict Ahmad Anthony Nowaid and scores of tenants subleasing through him in violation of his contracts with the California Department of Transportation (or Caltrans), according to court records.