Detectives still treating King St blaze as suspicious
INVESTIGATIONS are continuing into a fire which destroyed commercial buildings on the main street of Clifton early on Sunday morning.
Police detectives and Queensland Fire and Rescue Service forensic investigators are still treating the blaze at 85 King St as suspicious, but have not yet formally identified any suspect or motive.
Emergency crews were called out at 4.45am Sunday as flames and smoke began to pour from the site, which housed a real estate business, a second-hand shop and a residence occupied by the building's owner, local identity Gino Gomez.
A spokesman for the Warwick police Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) said the partially renovated residence was unoccupied when the fire started, with Mr Gomez understood to have been in Brisbane at the weekend.
He was unable to be contacted yesterday.
It us understood a representative of an insurance company travelled from interstate yesterday to inspect the damage.
Mr Gomez last made the news when he was the victim of a shooting as part of a botched armed robbery at the Nobby General Store in June 2011. He suffered a gunshot wound to his left leg.
No one has ever been charged over the shooting.
Property records show Gino Alejandro Gomez and Lana Marie Gomez purchased the 782sq m King St site for $315,000 in November 2011, from Crows Nest's Kingfisher Property Management.
The couple previously owned a flat and shops at Fisher St in Clifton, which burnt to the ground in May 2008 and were replaced with residential units.
