Sunday evening, flames ripped through a shopping plaza in Northwoods, destroying four businesses and forcing customers to flee.
Around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, firefighters were dispatched to 91 North Oaks Plaza at Natural Bridge Road, Lucas and Hunt Road, for a fire report. Jasmine Kaur, who works at Simply Shoes, believes the fire started in the business’s ceiling.
“My customer smelled a gas leak.” “With her, I went to the back, and there was a sudden fire,” she said.
The Clodbuster Smoke Shop, a Boost Mobile store, a Save A Lot grocery store, and a shoe store were all damaged by fire. The owner of the smoke shop spoke with First Alert 4, but only revealed his first name, Bo.
“I was working at the shop when I noticed smoke running down the air vent. The girl then runs in from the shoe store and says, “Hey, the shoe store is on fire.” So I quickly called the police and got everyone out,” he explained.
Up to 100 customers were forced to evacuate the shopping center’s stores. However, there are no reports of any injuries.
Kaur said she didn’t know what caused the gas leak, but electrical work had been done in the back of the store in recent days.
