Arson possible in pizza shop fire

EAST HAVEN, Conn, (WTNH) - Police in East Haven say a fire at a pizza shop Monday morning may have been intentionally set.

The first started around 3:30am at Giuseppe's Apizza on Route 80.

Officials say the fire started somewhere in the rear of the building and then spread up into the attic. From there, smoke quickly spread into the other three businesses in the strip mall. The flames also ate a hole in the floor of the pizzeria, and that meant a scary moment for one of the firefighters.

"Yeah, we did have one of the guys while he was making his interior attack, found the hole in the floor, actually got a leg into it. He figured out what was going on. Of course, in the smoke, he couldn't see. He was able to back back out again," says Chief Douglas Jackson of the East Haven Fire Department.

Firefighters were just packing up from the pizzeria fire when a new call came in. A house in the North end of town on Warner Road was burning.

New 8 had the first TV camera to see the damage to the house and two vehicles as well. One man, as well as a dog and a cat were rescued from the blaze.

The Chief explained how they got inside the house and rescued the victim inside.

"We broke in the window and we were able to pull a guy out of there. Unconscious, but he was breathing on his transport to the hospital," says Jackson.

The cause of that fire is still under investigation.