April 23--Firefighters watched a home in Riverbank burn to the ground early Tuesday morning -- they had planned on setting the fire themselves but someone beat them to it.
The fire started inside an abandoned home on Oakdale Road near Claribel Road at about 5:40 a.m., said Stanislaus Consolidated Fire District Captain Buck Condit.
The owner of the vacant home was going through the permitting process to donate it to Stanislaus Consolidated to use for a practice burn.
Firefighters would have trained in ventilation, fire suppression and search tactics, Condit said, but an arsonist got to it first.
No one has been arrested for starting the fire.
Firefighters kept the blaze from spreading but otherwise let it burn out.
"We were not going to risk any injury for a building that we were going to burn down anyway," Condit said.
The flames fizzled after about two hours.
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