A suspicious blaze destroyed two businesses in Melbourne’s south-east overnight, including a barbershop belonging to an 18-year-old that opened just two days ago.
Emergency services responded to reports of two shops on fire at a shopping centre on Heatherton Road in Endeavour Hills about 12.45am, with fire crews arriving on scene to find the barbershop and kebab shop engulfed in flames.
The entire roof of the barber’s caved in.
READ MORE: ‘I don’t need my life anymore’: Nation rocked by worst tragedy in memory
“When I came to the shop I was just shocked. I was like, how could this happen to me?” the teenage owner of the shop, Mahdi Rajee, told 9News.
Both businesses were significantly damaged, with arson chemists spending the morning combing through the wreckage, trying to work out which store the fire started in.
“I heard a big bang, at first I thought someone had smashed my car or something,” witness Akmal Akbar said.
READ MORE: Ex-lover ‘carefully planned’ water polo coach’s murder at school
“I was coming outside, I saw these huge flames.”
Rajee said he felt “devastated” by the loss.
He’d saved up around $45,000 for the renovations, sold his car to pay for it, and family had chipped in as well – but they hadn’t taken out insurance.
“All my hard work, everything I’ve worked for, gone. I felt good about myself, and now, back to scratch,” he said.
Rajee has set up a GoFundMe page so he can hopefully reopen his store.
Police said an investigation into the cause of the fire was ongoing.
DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
