Zohredh Khaleghi, the owner of the Flaming Torch Restaurant in New Orleans, says she was on the second floor when fire began to consume her restaurant last week.
"I really thought, I'm not going to make it," Khaleghi said.
It was around 8 pm Sunday, January 29, when Khaleghi says she was closing the restaurant she has owned for 14 years. She was on the second floor doing inventory when smoke suddenly filled the air.
"The only thing that came to my mind was to find a way to get out," Khaleghi said.
Khaleghi said she climbed up the roof, escaping, thanks to the neighboring store attached to her restaurant.
New Orleans Police are saying there is no evidence yet that this was a hate crime. There is surveillance footage of a masked man possibly dousing the dining room with gasoline while Ms. Khaleghi was upstairs.
Khaleghi, 52, said she believe the fluid she described having seen in the video was gasoline. The smell of gasoline filled the interior of the restaurant four days after the fire, and a thick layer of soot coated the walls, ceiling and windows. She said she turned the surveillance video over to the fire department.
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Even though the restaurant was closed, Khaleghi said, it should have been obvious that someone was still there, as she'd left the first-floor lights on as well as the television and the stereo system.
Khaleghi is a widow and a mother of two boys. She and her late husband were born in Iran and have lived in America for 27 years.
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