ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The St. Petersburg community is coming together after a local clay studio caught on fire earlier this week.
Beth Miranda is co-owner of St. Pete Ceramics. She said a fire broke out around 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday.
Watch report from Julie Salomone
"There were five or six fire trucks, a lot of firefighters out back. At that point, I was like oh my God, it's totally gone. It's all gone. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know if I was going to pass out or throw up. I wasn't sure what was happening," said Miranda.
She opened the clay studio nearly two years ago. She ran her business, The Muddy Walrus, out of the studio. She also hosted pottery classes.
The building provided a space for other artists to work.
"It sounds crazy, but people just have these jobs, or they have these lives that are so stressful and then they're like 'I can come here and be in the community. I can make things and just be,' and that's what this place was," she said.
Miranda said firefighters have not determined an official cause of the fire, but she believes it was electrical.
A GoFundMe page is raising money online to help rebuild the studio. The fire caused extensive damage to the structure. It also destroyed equipment like kilns.
"Everything in the back hallway is gone, which is the expensive things like the kilns, all of our tools...the structure has to be replaced," she said.
Miranda said volunteers showed up just hours after the fire to help clean up the mess.
"St. Pete is literally the best place. I can't even tell you. St. Pete is magical. We had people in and out of here all day yesterday from 8:00 a.m. until it was dark. We had so much food, so much coffee and so many hugs," said Miranda.
Miranda said she is grateful to the firefighters from St. Pete Fire Rescue who worked to put out the fire.
"We had pottery for sale everywhere in the front windows. They moved it so carefully and did not break anything so beautiful...that was art that didn't get destroyed," she said.
Miranda hopes to find a short-term rental while the building gets repaired.
"The entire building has smoke and soot damage. It's definitely going to take a while to rebuild," she said.
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