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Thursday, March 28, 2024
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NewsCommunityMilpitas Businessman Suraj Viswanathan helps put out roadside fire

Milpitas Businessman Suraj Viswanathan helps put out roadside fire

Milpitas entrepreneur Suraj Viswanathan, who ran for city council in 2018 and 2020, was on the road back from Los Angeles just before 10am on Monday morning when a truck hit a post on the side of the road in San Jose. 

This happened along U.S. Route 101. On impact, the truck’s battery exploded, and soon a brushfire was crawling up a nearby hill.

Viswanathan pulled over, along with two groundskeepers from nearby Coyote Creek Golf Course. The three of them pulled fire extinguishers from the groundskeepers’ car and began to put out the flames. 

In a statement, Viswanathan wrote, “My eyelids got burnt as well as the hair on my forearms, but I was extremely happy with the effort saving the mountain behind from the raging fire.” 

Soon personnel from Cal Fire and the San Jose Fire Department showed up to finish the job the Good Samaritans had started. Meanwhile, nobody in the truck was hurt. But the high wind conditions and dry heat brought the historic Dixie Fire up north, which has by now burned almost half a million acres, to Viswanathan’s mind.

He later told news reporters from KRON4, which aired footage of him battling back grass flames with a shovel, “I did what I could do to be a good person.”

Said Viswanathan in his statement, “I would like to thank all the firefighters who work day in and day out to put fires off. Today I had a firsthand experience on what a firefighter does for a living, and kudos to them all for keeping us safe.”

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Eric Shapiro
Eric Shapiro
Eric Shapiro is a writer & filmmaker. As a screenwriter, he’s won a Fade In Award and written numerous feature films in development by companies including WWE, Mandalay Sports Media, Game1, and Select Films. He is also the resident script doctor for Rebel Six Films (producers of A&E’s “Hoarders”). As a journalist, Eric’s won a California Journalism Award and is co-owner and editor of The Milpitas Beat, a Silicon Valley newspaper with tens of thousands of monthly readers that has won the Golden Quill Award as well as the John Swett Award for Media Excellence. As a filmmaker, Eric’s directed award-winning feature films that have premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, and Shriekfest, and been endorsed by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Eric’s apocalyptic novella “It’s Only Temporary” appears next to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” on Nightmare Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Horror Novels of All Time. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Rhoda, and their two sons.

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