BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Fire crews fought a 2-alarm fire in a plaza at the corner of Kensington Avenue and Eggert Road on Saturday.
Smoke from the fire could be spotted from the Kensington Expressway as 2 On Your Side reporter Danielle Church and photojournalist Scott May drove out to the scene. People were encouraged to avoid the area as crews work to extinguish the fire.
A Buffalo Fire Department spokesperson said the fire started in an office space between the laundromat and Rent-A-Center around 4:20 p.m. Investigators say the fire caused an estimated $3 million in damages to the strip mall plaza.
"Crews made entry, and they started to make a push on the fire but then found it had gotten into the cockloft at that time, so we pulled crews out, and then we went to our aerial operations," Buffalo Division Chief Tom Meldrum said.
No injuries were reported, and the cause remains under investigation.
Meldrum says both the laundromat and Rent-A-Center only saw smoke damage. But SNUG and Davita Dialysis, which was being used as office space, are all a total loss.
"There's a good possibility that center section will have to be demolished and rebuilt," Meldrum said.
The location is where a methadone clinic was supposed to go, but Kensington Block Club president William Miller told 2 On Your Side that neighbors and state leaders got that idea shut down back in December.
"This is our neighborhood. everybody comes here everyday. It's crowded," said Miller.
Sahara Guido says her husband works at the Rent-A-Center in that plaza, and said he called her saying he was being forced to evacuate the store.
She says it was just her husband and the store manager inside, and that they’re OK. She added that her husband will most likely be relocated to another location for work, as Rent-A-Center has done in the past.
Residents who live near Kensington and Eggert told 2 On Your Side they feel for all the impacted businesses, especially because the plaza has been looted in the past, both during the social justice protests two years ago, as well as during the Christmas blizzard.
"I know they've been looted before. I know the things that have happened in this plaza many times," said Sahara Guido, who's husband works at Rent-A-Car. "It's like they can't get a break. They really cannot get a break. It's unfortunate, they just put stuff back together and stuff just opened. COVID, then you gets something else that happens and something else that happens... I feel really bad for them."