A fire burned down a mason building in Florence Colorado.

Most of the older buildings on main street in Florence are from the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Florence is near Canon city and both are home to many federal max prisons.

FLORENCE, Colo. (KKTV) - Nearly two dozen volunteer firefighters battled a large fire in a commercial stretch of downtown Florence early Thursday morning.

The fire started in a two-story brick building near the intersection of Main Street and Santa Fe Avenue. The building appears to house several businesses, including a barber shop.

“When we showed up, we had fire on the second story. And just kind of went from there,” said Jason Kendall, assistant chief for the Florence Fire Department.

Video from a viewer taken around 3 a.m. shows flames shooting from the top floor of the structure and an enormous plume of smoke billowing out.

“We went in first, did an initial attack inside, and then we found conditions just started to deteriorate … then we pulled everybody out and just started using the aerials to start hitting the roof, just to vent it from the top,” Kendall said.

The roof collapsed during the firefight, he said.

The fire has shut down several streets in the area.

https://www.kktv.com/2021/08/05/part-downtown-florence-closed-due-fire-thursday-morning/