BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Authorities are investigating back-to-back fires at a former motel.
Firefighters were called to the former Redwood Motel about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, where a fire in one of the units had burned itself out, Assistant Fire Chief Kermit Schaefer said.
``We were inside the building for more than an hour after the fire and there was no indication that it would rekindle,'' Schaefer said.
A passer-by reported a second fire at the motel about 5:30 a.m. Flames were shooting about 20 feet out of the windows of the same unit, Schaefer said. Firefighters extinguished it within minutes. No one was hurt.
``We're classifying it as suspicious and worthy of investigation,'' Schaefer said.
Bismarck Police Detective Gary Malo said the motel's former owner died last month and authorities were trying to locate her children.
Police said an employee at a neighboring business called on May 19 to report at least two people taking furniture from one of the units and loading it into a pickup truck. The suspects were gone before police arrived, Malo said. The motel was out of business at the time of the burglary.
A separate Tuesday night fire in a building just west of Mandan destroyed two businesses and left another with heavy smoke damage, officials said.
Mandan Rural Fire Chief John Bullinger said the burned building housed a petroleum-related business, a cabinet business and a pollution control business. He said the fire did not appear suspicious.
Bullinger said an estimated $35,000 worth of cabinets were lost.
