Flames devoured a Hillcrest garage early Tuesday in what officials say is a puzzling case of combustion in a supposedly quiet neighborhood. According to FOX 5 San Diego, the blaze erupted around 3:22 a.m. in the 3700 block of 4th Avenue, where firefighters found a detached garage at a residential address completely ablaze, with its roof tragically collapsed.
While the San Diego Fire-Rescue team was quick to the scene, confining the spread of fire exclusively to the garage, the electrical infrastructure couldn't dodge the heat, some nearby electric poles were struck, and San Diego Gas & Electric had to scoot over to assess their equipment, no injuries were reported among the residents or the fire brigade. Battalion Chief Juan Flores disclosed to FOX 5 that the home appeared to be undergoing renovation work.
Adding to the mystery, official records from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, tagged FS24036282, reveal that the building set ablaze was, in fact, uninhabited. Obtained from the incident's public fact sheet, crews scoured the premises but found no one inside; the garage was ultimately red-tagged for being structurally unsound and too hazardous to enter post-inferno.
The estimated hit to the wallet is steep—the damages total a cool $160,000. While the smoky tendrils dissipated with the fire being snuffed out at 5:41:30 AM, the question of how the fire started remains unanswered.
