Downtown SLO street closed as fire breaks out above businesses
A structure fire briefly shut down a downtown San Luis Obispo street on Wednesday afternoon.
According to emergency response app Pulsepoint, a structure fire was reported at 781 Marsh St. just after 2 p.m.
Battalion Chief Armando Guttierez said when firefighters arrived there was “a light smell of smoke and report of water coming from the commercial residence below the apartments with an audible fire alarm.”
He said units made access to the interior of the building and identified that the fire was contained to a small room.
“Unknown how large the fire was or what caused it,” he told The Tribune. “That’s under investigation right now.”
The fire was quickly extinguished and then crews worked to “try to minimize the amount of water runoff” into the rest of the building, Guittierez added.
Beside the upper floor of apartments, the downtown building is also home to Habitat Home and Garden, Bodys & Jewelry and Cafe Crepes de SLO.
While firefighters were handling the incident, Marsh Street at Broad Street was temporarily closed to traffic.
Steven Acosta, owner of Bodys & Jewelry, said he saw smoke and flames coming from the windows above Habitat earlier Wednesday afternoon.
“I was like, ‘Oh, no,’” he told The Tribune. “So then I walked down and around to the Habitat — because the girls were still inside there — and I just told them, I said, ‘Hey, did you guys not want to get out because it looks like there’s fire? There’s smoke.’”
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 2:58 PM.
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