HOUSTON – Arson investigators are looking for Walmart customer who they say started a fire on a rack of shoes forcing an evacuation at the store.
Police said it happened around 11 p.m. Sunday night at the store on South Wayside and the Gulf Freeway.
According to police, the shoes quickly caught fire, filling the store with smoke and forced everyone outside.
Kathy Mojica and her boyfriend were at that Walmart Sunday night. She snapped s few pictures before evacuating.
"Everybody seemed like they didn't know what to do and they were just like confused and everything," said Mojica.
Arson investigators are checking surveillance video trying to find out who started the fire.
George Orozco, who was trying to pick up school supplies when the fire started, called the fire suspicious.
"A lot of people like the Walmart but whenever you start taking someone's business I could see why someone would have hatred towards the Walmart," Orozco said.
Orozco thinks someone set the fire intentionally, maybe bent out of shape about Walmart moving into the older established neighborhood.
The Health Department was called in to check the Walmart food for contamination from the smoke.