MIAMI (WSVN) - A church and several other businesses at a strip mall in Miami sustained severe smoke damage after, officials said, a fire broke out in the structure.
City of Miami Fire Rescue units responded to the scene of the blaze on Northwest 22nd Avenue, near 20th Street, just after 12:20 p.m., Sunday.
For parishioners, a day of worship became a day of mourning, as members grieved the loss of their church.
“There’s no words to describe how we felt about this,” said church member Michelle Santos.
Cellphone video captured extensive damage inside the house of worship.
“It really hurts us, ’cause it’s our church,” said Santos. “It’s basically our home. This is where we come to worship what we believe, in God.”
Officials said the fire ignited at Michelena Dollar Store. The owner of that business attempted to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher before realizing the inferno was too powerful.
Jehidy Michelena, the owner of the dollar store, said it was hard to look at the damage the fire wrought to the store that her mother opened for her family 14 years ago.
“Just one day, it’s gone,” Michelena said. “You know, it’s hard because everything is destroyed.”
Responding crews encountered heavy smoke coming from the store and had to reassess.
“Conditions became progressively worse, requiring us to pull out and to assume a more defensive attack,” said Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Ignatius Carroll.
Nearly 50 firefighters and nearly 20 fire trucks helped battle the flames. It took crews about two and a half hours to stop the blaze, but the Michelenas lost more than just the dollar store.
“All the money of the family was — the savings was in the business, and it was full of merchandise, so everything was destroyed,” Michelena said, “so we have no money.”
Since the store and a hair salon were the only businesses open at the time, firefighters were forced to break into the other businesses to determine whether anyone was inside.
Officials determined there was a hole in the roof of the dollar store. They said the fire spread spread into neighboring businesses, a shoe store on one side and the church on the other.
7News cameras captured glass and debris littering the parking lot as employees cleaned up the mess.
No one was injured.
As each business owner begins to process what they’ve lost, church congregants said they will use this incident to focus on what they’ve gained.
“It just brings us more together and to all of us stay strong and just remain together, united. That’s it,” said Santos. “We’re just going to clean up everything, and hopefully everything gets better, and it will.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The Dollar Store owner has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to help her family bounce back from this fire.
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