Woman Arrested for Arson at Burbank Target Empire Center

A 27-year-old San Fernando woman is facing a felony arson charge after Burbank Police say she intentionally set fire to the bedding section inside the Target at the Empire Center on March 29, 2026.

The fire broke out at approximately 11:00 p.m. at the store’s location on the 1800 block of Empire Avenue. Officers and Burbank Fire Department crews arrived to find the building already evacuated. Every employee and customer had gotten out. No serious injuries were reported. What they found inside, though, was severe: destroyed merchandise, smoke contamination throughout the store, structural damage to the building, and estimated losses running into the millions. The Target hasn’t reopened since that night.

Detectives didn’t wait. Within hours, investigators had pulled surveillance footage, canvassed the surrounding area for physical evidence, and conducted witness interviews. The video told a clear story. The fire originated in the bedding section. There weren’t any accidental ignition sources. No other individuals had been near that part of the store when the fire started. The investigation pointed to a single female suspect who’d set the fire deliberately.

Less than 24 hours after the blaze, on March 30, detectives tracked the suspect to a nearby hotel. Stephanie Irene Mendoza, 27, of San Fernando was taken into custody without incident and booked for violating California Penal Code section 451(b), felony arson. She didn’t resist arrest.

On April 2, prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed one count of 451(c) PC against Mendoza. That’s four days from fire to formal charge. The speed reflects how quickly investigators locked down the surveillance evidence and how little ambiguity remained about what happened in that store. “This case remains under investigation,” Burbank Police said in a statement.

The Empire Center isn’t a minor retail stop. It’s one of the busiest commercial corridors in the San Fernando Valley, drawing shoppers from Burbank, North Hollywood, and neighborhoods across the 818. The Target on Empire Avenue runs heavy foot traffic on weekend nights, and 11:00 p.m. on a Sunday means there’s still a crowd inside. The evacuation went smoothly, and that matters. It’s the kind of thing people take for granted until something goes wrong.

MyBurbank was first to report the details of Mendoza’s arrest and booking.

California’s arson statutes draw distinctions based on what burns and whether anyone is inside. Section 451(b) of the California Penal Code covers arson of an inhabited structure. Section 451(c), the count the District Attorney’s Office ultimately filed, applies to arson of a structure or forest land. Both are felonies. You can read the full statutory language through the California Legislative Information database to understand exactly what prosecutors are working with here.

Structure fires at retail properties aren’t rare nationally. NFPA data on structure fires shows that fires in stores and mercantile occupancies account for a meaningful share of commercial fire losses every year in the U.S. What’s unusual here is how fast investigators wrapped up the cause-and-origin work and got a name.

Burbank’s Investigations Division moved from scene to arrest in under 30 hours. From arrest to criminal filing took two more days. That timeline, fire on March 29, arrest on March 30, charges filed April 2, is tight by any standard. It reflects the evidentiary weight of in-store surveillance and a suspect who wasn’t hard to locate.

Mendoza’s case now sits with the courts. The damage at Empire Center’s Target, meanwhile, is extensive enough that the store has remained shuttered for repairs since the night of the fire. Millions in estimated losses, a closed location, and a community shopping hub knocked offline doesn’t disappear quietly from the neighborhood’s daily life.