Around 20 firefighters rushed to the scene of a blaze that erupted at a former CVS on 30th and Broadway in Oakland’s uptown neighborhood on Friday afternoon.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, Oakland fire officials said, but there were signs that squatters had broken into the building and were illegally occupying the former pharmacy’s basement.
Officers arrived at the scene just before 3 p.m. and were able to contain the fire within 15 minutes. Shortly after, they began clearing out the occupied area, carrying out wooden palettes and charred furniture.
No one was injured in the fire, said Oakland Fire Department spokesperson Michael Hunt.
That CVS, located at 2964 Broadway, closed on Jan. 9, 2023, just months after the Walgreens at 3400 Telegraph Ave. shut down just a half-mile away.
More recently in the uptown neighborhood, Target shuttered its location at 2650 Broadway in November, following what Target CEO called “an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime.”
