DAVIE, Fla. – Davie police officers and firefighters responded to a large fire Monday morning at a recreational vehicle dealership.
The fire was reported at 5:17 a.m. by someone who was leaving a business near the Planet RV at 3030 Burris Road.
It led to a massive fire fight that took crews three hours to control.
Sky 10 was above the scene as thick smoke was coming from the building. At one point, a portion of the roof collapsed.
The building has since been deemed a total loss.
Gigi Stetler, the owner of Planet RV, was distressed and distraught after seeing the damage left behind due to what authorities deemed an electrical fire.
“They just deemed the building a complete total loss, so I’m kind of devastated,” she said. “35 years of history is in there.”
Her sales and service centers were destroyed. What’s left inside the building are charred RV’s and equipment, along with products scattered and burned.
Some meaningful items, like a book Stetler wrote, didn’t get damaged in the fire. She sees it as a message due to the book’s title.
“The name of the book is ‘Unstoppable! Surviving Is Just The Beginning’ and the book survived,” she said.
Numerous recreational vehicles could be seen parked outside the business, but it did not appear that any had caught fire.
Davie Fire Marshal Robert Taylor told Local 10 News that firefighters arrived at the scene at 5:25 a.m. and found heavy smoke and flames coming from the business.
He said crews tried to enter the building to begin an “interior attack,” but were not able to do so because of heavy fire conditions.
He said crews then began an “exterior” or “defensive attack.”
“There’s hazards in there that are associated with it, and could have potentially have caused the fire to be more severe,” Taylor said.
The chaotic scene caused police to shut down the only road leading back to the warehouse and many other businesses, leaving those workers with no other choice but to sit and wait.
“We have a lot of work to do, but I don’t know how long this will take. We have to let them go in before we go,” Thomas Mensah, who works nearby, said.
Taylor said units from the Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue, Pembroke Pines Fire Rescue and Hollywood Fire Rescue assisted in extinguishing the blaze.
While Stetler has a huge cleanup effort on her hands, she says she will rebuild and be there for the community.
“RV’S are people’s needs right now, they are buying RVs to be safe traveling,” she said. “By tomorrow morning I will have an RV office, we will be open for business somewhat, somehow.”
No injuries were reported.
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