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Emeryville Target Temporarily Closed after Suspected Arson

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The Emeryville Target is temporarily closed after a fire was extinguished inside the store on Monday evening.

A photo shared after the incident showed bedding piled outside of the store with employees, members of the Alameda County Fire Dept. and fatigue-clad security officers huddled near the entrance.


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Twitter user @Theinfophile detailed her account of the fire describing coming across a pile of towels in flames and her wife jumping into action. “Apparently she found a fire extinguisher on our way out, grabbed it and ran back to put the fire out (which was smokey but still relatively small).”

The severity of the damage was not immediately known. The smoke was apparently small enough to not activate the fire sprinkler system.


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A January fire at the Albany target is being investigated for Arson. The Richmond Target was the victim of arson last month.

We have reached out to both the Alameda County Fire Department and Emeryville Police Department for additional information and any connection to these other incidents and will update this story if any new information becomes available.

The store remains closed as of Tuesday evening with no timetable for reopening.

August 10 update: Emeryville PD has confirmed that the fire was indeed intentionally set (arson) through the below press release:

On Monday August 08, 2022, at approx. 5:48 pm, EPD dispatch received calls of a fire inside Target. Upon the arrival of Officers and Alameda County Fire, employees and customers had already been evacuated by Target employees and the fire had already been extinguished by employees.

During the investigation, it appears the fire was intentionally started in the area of a towel display. A potential person of interest was observed on video surveillance in the area where the fire started; however, further information regarding this person of interest is not being released to the public at this time.

Anyone with information relating to this incident is asked to call Emeryville Police Detectives (510)596-3700 (please reference case #2208-0521).

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Rob Arias

is a third generation Californian and East Bay native who lived in Emeryville from 2003 to 2021. Rob founded The E'ville Eye in 2011 after being robbed at gunpoint and lamenting the lack of local news coverage. Rob's "day job" is as a creative professional.

5 Comments

  1. I was near the Richmond Target when it was supposedly “arson- fired”, and they closed it temporarily- if we remember a couple of years ago- people had their credit cards or the store had an information breach of personal information- or was that Walmart? Thanks

  2. I live in East Oakland and this is the 1st I’ve heard of this. So, therefore this is both new & shocking to me both at the same time😮😮😮

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