Owner of shop destroyed in fire says he'll rebuild

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Several businesses were destroyed, and a firefighter was hospitalized, after a Valley strip mall went up in flames on Wednesday.

Smoke from the fire was visible for miles, and it was a huge loss for owners of some local shops. Despite the loss, the owner of a smokeshop says they will rebuild.

"Bunch of families are out of a job," said the owner of the shop, identified only as "Omar". He was working when the fire started in the back of the building.

"I was just sitting in the store, and an officer came and advised me that there was a fire in the back," said Omar. "So I rushed, grabbed the keys and opened the gate for him. It was fairly large, but it wasn't burning on the building."

Then, the fire grew, and it forced Omar to act quickly.

"I went back to the store to grab something, but when I came back out, the whole roof was on fire," said Omar. "I just started running in the stores, getting everybody out"

The fire ripped through multiple businesses, leaving little to nothing in the aftermath.

"A complete and total loss of this building, it'll be a cement slab in a week from now," said Cpt. Rob McDade.

Other business owners and families spent Thursday cleaning up what they could, and firefighters were still on scene, up until the afternoon. Omar had just taken over ownership of the business earlier this year, and it's not exactly how he thought the first year would go.

It there's a silver lining, however, it's that there were no serious injuries.

"We're gonna rebuild," said Omar. "It could've been much worse. Thank god everybody came out."

Phoenix Fire is looking into the possibility that spontaneous combustion of some of the materials in that shed behind the strip mall started all of this.