A fire tore through a strip mall near North Highlands before dawn on Saturday, leaving a taqueria and a tire shop with extensive damage as crews worked to bring the flames under control. The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District responded around 4:13 a.m. to the reported blaze at 5599 Hillsdale Blvd., according to fire officials.
Fire crews said the flames started outside the businesses before spreading inside, according to FOX40. By the time crews got a handle on the scene, the taqueria and tire shop had both sustained extensive damage, fire officials said.
Officials are still investigating how the fire started, and no additional details about the cause have been released. The overnight blaze adds to a string of strip mall fires that have struck Sacramento County businesses in recent years, underscoring how quickly flames can spread through older commercial buildings packed tightly together.
A Separate Florin Road Fire Raises Questions
Around the same period, a different strip mall fire was reported along Florin Road near Franklin Boulevard, according to ABC10, which reported that blaze broke out around 4:30 a.m. Friday. It remains unclear whether the Florin Road fire and the Hillsdale Boulevard fire were connected or entirely separate incidents, as the locations and reported days differ between the two accounts.
In the Florin Road incident, the Sacramento Fire Department said the fire was mostly out by 8 a.m., though crews expected to remain on scene for the rest of the day. The same report noted that part of the strip mall's roof had collapsed, prompting firefighters to take a defensive approach rather than entering the structure.
That strip mall was described as mostly vacant by the fire department, and crews used aerial ladders while pumping roughly 1,000 gallons of water per minute onto the flames. Florin Road was shut down between Franklin Boulevard and Luther Drive during the firefight, and no injuries were reported.
Echoes of a 2022 North Highlands Blaze
Saturday's fire near North Highlands isn't the first time a strip mall in that part of Sacramento County has gone up in flames. In April 2022, a large fire broke out at an unoccupied strip mall near Palm Avenue and Auburn Boulevard in North Highlands, according to KCRA.
No injuries were reported in that 2022 fire, which crews eventually extinguished before mopping up and overhauling the building with aerial ladder trucks and large-bore hose lines, the station reported. That fire was also placed under investigation, mirroring the open questions now surrounding Saturday's blaze.
For now, officials have not released a timeline for determining what sparked the fire at the Hillsdale Boulevard strip mall, leaving business owners and neighbors waiting for answers about how the flames ignited and spread so quickly through the shopping center.
