The East Anaheim Plaza shopping center on Anaheim Street in Central Long Beach was destroyed early Sunday in an overnight four-alarm fire, according to Long Beach Fire Department officials.
The shopping center was vacant at the time of the fire, according to fire officials, and there were no injuries to firefighters. Still, the Long Beach Police Department shut down a portion of Anaheim Street on Sunday morning and encouraged nearby residents to shelter in place out of an abundance of caution.
By early afternoon, the roads had been reopened.
According to Fire Department spokesman Capt. Jack Crabtree, officials were notified of the fire at 3:40 a.m. The fire had been mostly extinguished by late morning, but Crabtree said just before 5 p.m. that it wasn’t yet clear if the fire was fully out.
The department requested assistance from the Los Angeles County Fire Department “to assist with their heavy excavator, because there’s numerous partially collapsed walls,” he said. “And because of the possibility of further collapse, our firefighters aren’t able to sift through a lot of the remaining rubble and structure to make sure the fire is fully extinguished.”
Crabtree said fire crews would likely be rotating at the scene until Sunday night to make sure the scene is clear.
As of Sunday evening, authorities did not yet have details on what caused the fire.
Early this morning #YourLBFD responded to a large commercial fire in a vacant strip mall that was undergoing renovations. The fire occurred near the intersection of Anaheim Street and Olive Avenue. pic.twitter.com/Uxro0fU7dU
— Long Beach Fire (CA) (@LBFD) December 11, 2022
The shopping center, which was home to several businesses including multiple restaurants, a medical clinic, a pharmacy, a salon and a shoe store, was unrecognizable Sunday morning. The entire structure was charred, and the roof had collapsed.
The plaza had been in the midst of renovation work, and some of those businesses were temporarily closed during the construction. But several continued operating through the months-long project.
Bharpur Singh, who owned a Subway in the shopping center, was alerted to the fire at around 7 a.m., when an employee who was scheduled to open the store Sunday morning called and gave him the news. Singh, who lives about an hour away, rushed to the site.
“We’ve owned the Subway since 2008,” he said. “It was our first business, so it was definitely a shocker to me and my family, seeing our first business go down. There’s some emotional sentiment.”
His family owns other businesses, including 7-Elevens and another Subway down the street, but, he said, “this is where it started.”
Singh said he had recently spent about $100,000 to renovate the Subway, and that work was completed about two months ago. The work on the entire plaza was scheduled to be completed in March 2023, he said.
“We were ready for the whole thing to be done,” he said. “I can’t even process my feelings.”
This story is developing and will be updated.