ZELIENOPLE, PA -- This fire started shortly after 3 a.m., and by the daylight hours, there were 15 area fire companies on the scene, using four ladder trucks trying to bring the flames under control. It began in an empty corner building on Main Street, formerly used by Triple A Travel.

It spread to Beecher's coffee shop next door and to a third building with law offices.

Three firefighters were trapped briefly on the second floor near where the fire broke out.

Chief Rob Reeb of the Zelienople Fire Department said, "They called and said they were entrapped. We had a second crew going up the stairway. They were able to pull them back out. The ceiling came down on them."

Nobody was hurt.

But they couldn't save Beechers coffee shop. A well known local business owner, Dave Brauer, said his coffee shop is destroyed. "I started this business five years ago and we were just starting to make money. I was trying to see if my batch room was still good to see if we could still make gelato. It looks like it might be salvageable."

Brauer owns another building on the street and hopes to rebuild:

His employees are stunned, saying it was more than a business. Amy Gatnarek, a coffee shop employee, said, "We were roasting coffee everyday, shipping coffee over to the troops in Iraq, selling wholesale to a lot of people."

Sue Leasher, a Zelienople resident, said of Beecher's coffee shop, that "It has an effect on all of us. It's part of our history."