Fire investigators said the blaze that destroyed a KCMO home early Tuesday morning is being ruled suspicious.
The small house in the 2800 block of Oakley Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri caught fire overnight. Bomb and arson investigators were at the scene for hours, taking pictures and talking to neighbors. They said it could be arson.
Neighbors said they woke up around 2 a.m. and saw the home in flames.
Ricardo Rodriguez said his mom woke him up and told him to get his brother out of bed.
Stubborn house fire at 28th & Oakley overnight. Neighbors say it was vacant. pic.twitter.com/iIoz5pwJly
— Jason Gould (@OvernightPhotog) April 5, 2016
Tjaun Walls, who also lives with Rodriguez, received a call that the house next door was on fire. He immediately came home.
A corner of his roof was burned, but nothing else.
"There used to be a tree a little bit closer to my house, and my son cut that down last summer. If that tree would have still been there my house would be on fire as well," Walls said.
Both Walls and Rodriguez, and another neighbor across the street, told 41 Action News the house was abandoned but they had seen people moving mattresses and foam sheets into the home. One neighbor said the house was condemned two weeks prior to the fire.
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Sarah Plake can be reached at sarah.plake@kshb.com.
