Vallejo smoke shop’s storage room goes up in flames

Aug 19, 2023

A fire at a Vallejo smoke shop early Monday morning caused an estimated $50,000 in damages, authorities said — and it could have been worse if a concerned neighbor hadn't smelled smoke.

Dispatch received a call around 4 a.m. Monday from a neighbor upstairs of U-Know Smokeshop on Tuolumne Street, firefighter Kevin Brown said. No smoke detectors had gone off in the business, Brown said, but smoke was coming through the neighbor's wall heater. The neighbor believed the heater was malfunctioning.

When Brown and other firefighters arrived on scene, they immediately knew there was a fire.

"As soon as I stepped off, I could smell smoke," Brown said.

First responders had to cut through locks outside the "very well-fortified" smoke shop in order to get access, he said. As soon as they did, "the smoke started pouring out the front door."

Brown said authorities entered a storage room in the small business to find products engulfed in flames. Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, which remained contained to that room.

Brown said that flames had destroyed most evidence of the fire's cause by the time first responders got there. However, he said it appeared that something had been smoldering in the storage room for several hours before building into a fire.

U-Know Smokeshop was open for business Tuesday and no damage was apparent in its main business area. A clerk who is not the store's owner declined to comment on this article.

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