Acacia Coffee, Beaudesert Road Business, Acacia Ridge, destroyed by fire
A small family run cafe in Brisbane’s south has been gutted by a fire this morning, with CCTV footage showing an unknown man destroying windows with a crowbar and dousing the business with fuel from a jerry can. VIDEO
Southeast
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A small family-run cafe in Brisbane’s south has been gutted by a fire on Wednesday morning, October 25, with CCTV footage showing an unknown man destroying windows with a crow bar and dousing the business with fuel from a jerry can.
Siblings Poppi and Hunter Balmforth turned up for their morning shift with friend Indian Holdsworth at Acacia Coffee to discover the devastation.
Police told them the Acacia Ridge cafe was gutted in the fire.
The siblings’ aunt, Kym Turner, opened Acacia Coffee three years ago during the pandemic.
They said CCTV footage allegedly showed an unknown person breaking a window with a crowbar at 1.30am.
The person then allegedly poured petrol from a jerry can on the cafe floor, through the smashed window, before lighting it.
“Police showed us footage of a man with a jerry can torching the place. I just hope they catch him,” Poppi, 20, said.
“There has been an increase in crime recently in the area.
“The vape shop next door has been broken into a lot, but never a full blown fire like this.
“I just don’t know why anyone would do this.
“I was in complete shock and didn’t think it was real. You wake up getting ready to go to work and then you see this.
“My aunty has done such a great job with the business.
“We’ve been building it up, have done renovations and she is just gutted.
“It was her baby. She started the business during Covid and we had such a great local community with lots of regulars.
“We had plans to make it bigger and now we don’t know what is going to happen.”
The fire also damaged neighbouring Evershine Dry Cleaners, a barber and post office.
They would remain closed while police investigated.
“People had wedding dresses and expensive clothes at the dry cleaners which have all been burnt,” Ms Holdsworth said.
“It’s just sad how many lives it will affect. How do you recover from this?”
A GoFundMe page was expected to be created to help cover the cost of repairing the cafe.
Police declared a crime scene at the coffee shop, on the corner of Beaudesert Rd and Elizabeth St.
When police arrived at 1.30am the shop was well alight.
Queensland Ambulance Service confirmed no patients were treated on scene.
A Queensland Fire and Emergency Service spokesman said they were contacted at 1.24am and dispatched eight crews and a senior officer.
“They saw smoke upon arrival and it was well involved,” he said.
“Fire went into the ceiling and roof.
“It spread to two other shops in a block of 12 to 14 shops.”
He confirmed the ceiling collapsed and firefighters had to force their way into an adjoining shop to fight the spreading fire.
Crews had the blaze under control by just after 2am after setting up a crane to help fight it.
The fire was extinguished by about 3.30am.
Investigators appealed to anyone who might have CCTV footage or relevant dashcam footage to contact them.
The shop was still a crime scene late this morning as fire investigators begin examining the remains.
No further information is available at this time.
Investigations are ongoing.
Anyone with information for police can contact Policelink police.qld.gov.au/reporting or call 131 444.
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