For years, Giovanni Pena has put every penny he’s earned working two jobs into making improvements to his tire shop in downtown San Jose.
Every morning, the 40-year-old San Jose resident would go to work as a wifi network technician, then spend his evenings running the logistics of his tire shop, staying until 9 p.m. every night. He stayed open later than any other shops in his vicinity, earning him customers looking for a place with flexible hours.
But early Tuesday morning, Pena woke up to dire news: His store was on fire.
“It was like a nightmare,” he said in an interview. “I was in shock. I was very sad, and the money I have (made) over the years was gone.”
“I was just crying, crying and thinking it was my last opportunity to have something,” he added. “Thinking what am I going to do now? I don’t have … anything to pay my rent.”
The fire broke out around 5:30 a.m. and had fully engulfed the building by the time firefighters arrived on scene. The blaze is under investigation by the San Jose Fire Department’s arson unit.
Pena is reeling in the wake of the fire, grappling with the fact that he’s lost everything he worked so hard for over the past few years – and wondering what he will do now to support his four children, aged five years old to twenty years old.
On Aug. 28, 2026, Baja Tires owner Giovanni Pena, 40, shows a photo of his shop, which was damaged by the three-alarm blaze on Tuesday morning. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
“All the money I have, I put it in there,” he said.
Pena opened the business in its current location on William Street one year ago after moving from San Carlos Street, where he had been located for four years, he said. The business wasn’t yet profitable on its own, he said; he put all its income toward paying his employees.
“I was not making too much money in there. It was just to survive, to pay the rent and the bills,” he said. “I was just hoping next year to have better sales.”
A neighbor of the tire shop got in touch with Pena’s wife around 5:40 a.m. on Tuesday, and she woke him up to the news of the fire, he said. He rushed to the scene, where he found the store completely engulfed in flames.
“I thought it was a joke, or something small,” he said. “But when I came there, it was everything.”
Pena did not own the building the tire shop was housed in, but the fire wrecked all his tools and supplies, as well as three cars he had on site. One was his daughter’s car; she had scratched the bumper and Pena was fixing it for her, he said.
When he was able to go back into the building to look around, he found most everything, including cash and his laptop, burned. The only item that survived was a Japanese toy gun from the 1950s – one of the toys he likes to collect.
Pena’s insurance policy has lapsed since he moved into the new location, he said, so he does not think he will be able to get reimbursement for any of the lost items.
He plans to work for a friend’s business to support his family, he said.
“I need to work,” he said. “I don’t have any other option.”
Pena’s daughter launched a GoFundMe to raise money to help her father rebuild his business. Any funds raised will go toward helping Pena start over – such as finding a new location and purchasing new tools.
“I’ve been supporting my kids (for) 20 years,” he said. “They never suffer because I’ve been working hard, never asking for any benefits from the city – nothing. Even this, I don’t like to ask for help.”