Santa Cruz Auto Shop torn down after massive fire breaks out

UPDATE 10/22/18 6:10 p.m. After a fire tore through two buildings in Santa Cruz on Sunday, nearby businesses are helping where they can.

Auto One dealership and De Laveaga Motors and Service Center were both hit hard during Sunday’s blaze which started around 7 a.m.

Nearby business owner of Keener Auto Body, James Keener, says he is offering to help where he can, “right now we’re just supporting them, keeping things stored over here so they don’t get stolen. Anything they need like, cleaning the tool boxes or cleaning supply’s and we have a stall there for them if they need to put a car in it.”

Keener says he knows the difficulties of owning your own business, “it’s the mystery of the unknown you know, there’s a lot of work that goes into building a business, especially a successful business.”

He says it’s gut wrenching to see his friends go through this, “it’s a lot of risk, you have a lot of equipment, you have debt, you have taxes to pay, a lot of owning a business is just showing up, and Sean showed up everyday.”

Sean is the owner of De Laveaga Service Center. Employees there spent most of the day Monday salvaging what they could from the shop.

Now they will be working with their insurance company on where to go from here.

Keener is encouraging anyone whose car was damaged during the fire to contact their personal insurance company, “it takes awhile for business insurance to get roll to get going – there’s a lot of investigation. They’re better turning their car into their insurance company.”

The cause of the fire has not been determined yet. They believe it started in one of the offices in De Laveage, but will have more information later this week.

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Santa Cruz residents woke Sunday morning to a smoke-filled sky when a fire broke out a local auto shop. The Santa Cruz Fire Department first got the 911 call around 7 in the morning, regarding the large amount of smoke coming from ‘Auto One’ auto shop, at the corner of Poplar Avenue and Water Street. Santa Cruz Fire said they were able to contain the fire within about an hour of the call.

Residents watched from the sidewalk in disbelief. “I mean its the biggest I’ve seen in Santa Cruz. I know there’s been bigger ones but not in a while,” said Santa Cruz resident, Isabella Hornn.

Santa Cruz Fire said, thankfully, no one was inside the building when it went up flames. After the fire was extinguished a demolition team arrived to break down what was left of the building. They were able to salvage the shop’s service center, along with multiple cars that they towed and transferred to a nearby parking lot.

Employees of the shop showed up to witness the aftermath, and watched as the building was torn to pieces.

James Keener, owner of ‘Keener Auto Body and RV Repair,’ said he plans to support his long-time neighbor during this time. “Were going to help him if he needs any help transitioning. Working on a few cars…he can use our stalls,” said Keener.

The intense burning made it impossible to Santa Cruz Fire to identify a cause. “We have our investigators looking at an area of origin, but we may be undetermined on cause because of the significant damage and how unsafe the building is at this point,” said Fire Chief Daniel Kline.

Residents said they are sad to see it go as the shop has been a part of the community for years. “Tomorrow school starts early in the morning, so its going to hard passing by and seeing that it’s burned down. It’s just not going to be the same,” said Hornn.