PHOENIX — Part of Kara McAllister’s job is to make those who come through her door feel pretty. She’s driven to keep doing that, even after someone did something pretty ugly to her salon recently.
Despite navigating through a cloud of chaos, the Valley salon was able to reopen just days after an arsonist set the original space on fire.
A few days after Thanksgiving, around 5 a.m., McAllister says security video shows someone put debris in a tire and set it on fire outside the Hair Again Salon at 21st and Glendale avenues. That fire spread inside the business and damaged nearly everything.
”The front of the salon was so badly charred, I looked in and was like, ‘No, I just put all my Christmas decorations out,'” she said.
She added she lost some irreplaceable things like Polaroid pictures of her parents.
A couple of doors down from the salon, a dog grooming business still has visible damage from the fire that spread across the connecting strip mall in the form of a gaping hole in the ceiling.
ABC15 was told there was another fire in the area in December 2022.
Phoenix police say the most recent fire is being investigated as arson. No one has been arrested and why someone would do this is unclear.
“If you knew how that would feel to have someone just take it away,” said McAllister.
McAllister was able to find a new home in the same strip mall just a few doors down. With the help of loyal clients and some decorations from home, she reopened all in a matter of days after the fire.
Clients have shown their gratitude for her resilience to restart and she feels, in a way, so did the universe.
One thing the fire didn’t take was a mission statement on the wall that reads in part, “to continuously give back to the community in every way, every day.”
"It’s a symbol of my commitment to my community, and to the people I love,” she said.
A GoFundMe account is set up for the salon to replace many of the assets lost in the fire.
