Hookah smoking lounge blaze at the strip mall near 35th Avenue and Cactus in Phoenix.PHOENIX (CBS5) -
A man has been arrested in connection to a fire that destroyed a hookah smoking lounge in a west Phoenix strip mall.
Phoenix fire investigators said the 63-year-old man is being charged with arson. His name has not been released.
Fire officials said the blaze broke out just before 5:30 a.m. Monday near 35th Avenue and Cactus.
Crews said they've had smaller fires break out there before, and this time they believe the fire was intentionally set to a sofa outside the business.
Capt. Larry Nunez of the Phoenix Fire Department said the fire spread from the couch, up a wall and into the business, where it was quickly extinguished.
All of the businesses in the strip mall share a common roof, so if the fire had gotten out of control, the whole strip mall could have gone up in flames, fire officials said. Instead, just two of the businesses in the strip mall were affected, according to Nunez.
"There are cigarette butts all over the pace. There's a couch that's out in the open. It's in front of a lounge where people are drinking. There's burn marks in the sidewalk where there's obviously been flares used previously. There's melted pieces of plastic that are covers of things that go underneath into the sidewalk, so it's real suspicious," Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Jonathan Jacobs said on Monday.
Fire officials said the lounge is a total loss.
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