A fire just before 5:30 am Monday morning at a Redwood City strip-mall liquor store took the lives of two people who were apparently trapped inside, both of whom were declared dead upon being discovered.
Redwood City’s Roosevelt Plaza is just a normal small strip-mall-style plaza with a spa, a nail salon, a couple fitness centers, and about five restaurants. It also has a liquor store called Avenue Liquors. But disaster struck at Avenue Liquors sometime before 5:30 am Monday morning, as KRON 4 reports that a fire broke out at the store, and the bodies of two people killed in the fire were discovered inside the premises later Monday morning.
The Redwood City Fire Department was called to the scene at 5:30 am Monday morning, and found the building engulfed in flames.
"During suppression efforts, firefighters opening the roof observed what appeared to be two individuals inside the structure,” the Redwood City Police Department said in an announcement. “Both showed no signs of life and appeared to have sustained severe burns."
The obvious question here is what those two people were doing in a closed liquor store at 5:30 in the morning, and whether they may have been somehow responsible for the fire itself.
We know that neither one of them was the owner of the liquor shop. The Redwood City Police Department’s statement noted that "The store owner has been contacted and is cooperating with investigators,” so that owner was not present at the store when the fire broke out.
At this point, the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office has not identified either of the two victims killed in the fire.
Both the Redwood City Fire Department and Redwood City Police Department are continuing to investigate the matter. Anyone with information is asked to contact theRedwood City Police Department at (650) 780-7100.
Related: Person Dies in Friday Night Apartment Fire in SF’s Cow Hollow Neighborhood [SFist]
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