Two fires and a shooting: Is this Qld's unluckiest family?
THE owners of a Clifton shop building that burnt to the ground on Sunday say they are living proof that bad things come in threes.
Gino and Lana Gomez were out of town when their King St building went up in flames in the early hours.
They had been living in the back half of the building, another section of it housing Mrs Gomez's mother's newly-opened second hand store.
The fire is being treated as suspicious.
Recent years have brought about a series of disasters for the family.
In 2008, another block of shops owned by the Gomez family burned down in a suspected arson attack, shortly after the death of Mr Gomez's father.
The block of shops comprised a cafe, a second-hand furniture store and an area in which the family had planned to live.
No one was charged over the blaze.
In 2011, Mr Gomez was shot in the leg by a masked gunman at a general store in Nobby.
The gunman escaped in Mr Gomez's four-wheel-drive, which was later found abandoned in bushland.
Mr Gomez underwent several painful surgeries after the attack.
The shooter was never identified.
The latest inferno happened while the couple visited Brisbane with their daughter and her friend.
Mrs Gomez said they had since taken refuge with family in Clifton.
"My parents live in town, so I'm staying there with my daughter and my husband is with his brother," she said.
"It has been one thing after the other.
"As my husband said, we just take one step forward and three steps back.
"The only thing we can be thankful for is that no one was hurt."
