Elkhart owner suspicious of the fire that destroyed his store
Posted: Jan 26, 2012 3:09 AM EDT | Updated: Nov 5, 2014 5:18 PM EDT
ELKHART, Ind. -- Over the weekend an Elkhart dress shop suddenly went up in flames and no one knows why.
ABC 57 News got a look at the surveillance video from the night of the fire.
The video was taking by the liquor store, Chalet Party Shoppe, just across the street.
Five days ago, the camera rolled as the fire destroyed a family-owned dress shop, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble where the building once stood. It's a loss Noe Navarete and his family are still coping with.
"It was almost like our second home since we spend most of the day here. This is where we work, this is where we have fun, this is pretty much everything," says Navarete.
Yet the business that meant so much to the family and brought them together is gone, and now the family is wondering if this horrible fire was more than an accident.
"We got a phone call around 9 o'clock from the alarm system saying the motion sensor had gone off inside," says Navarete.
Wednesday, investigators were out sifting through the rumble looking for clues that could piece together what happened. With no luck, officials decided to visit surrounding stores, like Chalet Party Shoppe, hoping the its surveillance video would reveal the details that lead up to the fire.
"They didn't go into detail about what they saw or disclose any information on if they gathered any information on what happened or what caused it," says Chalet's store manager Adam Johnson.
Johnson says the camera angle does not help much. The camera is located in the parking lot at the back corner of their store. So, although it faces the front of the dress shop, not much can be made out other in the video other than the smoke and the sudden explosion.