East side supermarket goes up in flames

Firefighters spent more than 12-hours on Friday battling a raging fire at a grocery story on Detroit’s east side. 

“I grocery shop there all the time,” said grocery store customer Vincent Durr. “it’s just gone be another abandoned lot.” 

Citizens hope that “Food Town” which was a supermarket will not remain this way. The fire occurred on Thursday and was so bad that it took the fire department until Friday morning around 11 a.m. to get it out. 

“It was smoking for a good while,” said Juanita King who works across from where the fire happened. 

No one was inside when the fire occurred. Everyone around Gratiot and Van Dyke say the supermarket was being remodeled. Some were even counting on the jobs after it reopened. 

From around 11:30 p.m. Thursday night to Friday morning crews had to switch out every 2-3 hours to make sure they were safe. One firefighter was even sent to the hospital. 

“I don’t know for sure, but on our report it said the crew member has some abdominal issues,” said Deputy Fire Commissioner David Fornell. 

In the end, some of the walls at the supermarket were torn down to check for hot spots. Now it is up for the property owners to determine what will be done next.