A pseudo-fire broke out Sunday night around 10 p.m. at Boogaloos on the corner of 22nd and Valencia streets due to rags that “spontaneously combusted” but were doused before flaring up.
“I wouldn’t say it was really a fire,” said Mindy Talmadge, a spokesperson for the fire department. “It was actually a bag of rags that were soaked with chemicals that spontaneously combusted.”
Talmadge explained that the chemical-soaked rags “were caught at the smoldering stage” and quickly put out before a true fire could erupt, and that the structure sustained no damage due to the rags.
Carolyn Blair Brandeis, a co-owner of the neighborhood diner, thought the fire was due to “some towels with grease” that produced some smoke but no fire.
“I think it was just some smoke, and [a fire] was certainly averted,” she said.
William McLeod, a photographer who lives nearby and who had his office in the building destroyed in the 22nd and Mission streets fire in January, wrote that there were “several firetrucks, firemen on the roof,” and “a slight smell in the air.”
It was “definitely a strange sight to see on 22nd street, just down the block from the Mission Market building,” that went up in flames on the evening of January 28th, he wrote.
But by Monday morning the restaurant was open to customers again, and Blair Brandeis said the only real damage was to the front door when firefighters broke through.
She also alluded to recent rent increases that have left the restaurant’s future uncertain. Last month it was feared Boogaloos would shutter its doors as early as September, though it plans to stay open at least through December.
“We’re having our share of bad luck aren’t we?”
