The American Red Cross is offering food and shelter to 23 people who had no choice but to leave their homes in the middle of the night to escape smoke and a three-alarm fire.
Investigators say the fire started just after midnight on Tuesday at an auto repair shop on Ocean Avenue across from Balboa Park in San Francisco. The shop is next to Tropi-Gala Night Club, and an apartment complex, where the fire spread.
Now, they’ll spend much of Tuesday trying to figure out how it started.
“There are a lot of combustibles in that repair shop, said San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, “so all of that will be looked at to rule out anything suspicious.”
All 23 people who were home at the time of the fire made it out OK. At least one man had to leave his shoes behind.
