Morning fire destroys Shoe Carnival in Bryant, other stores closed

BRYANT (KATV) — UPDATE (4:00 P.M.):

Back to school shoppers in Bryant had to find shoes elsewhere if they had plans to go to Shoe Carnival.

At around 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning, a fire broke out, forcing them to close their store at the Alcoa Exchange strip mall, along with neighboring stores.

According to Bryant Police Sergeant Todd Crowson tells Channel 7, still no word on what caused the fire, but it took multiple fire crews to respond and fortunately no one was hurt.

"At first, I thought something happened, I couldn't realize if it was something like a death or anything...until I came around the corner and saw that the building was kind of torn apart and burned down real bad," said Eugene Castrejon.

Castrejon and his four children had come to shop for back to school clothing and shoes.

Bryant, Benton, Crystal and Little Rock Fire crews all assisted in Sunday morning's fire, which also damaged it's neighboring stores: Rue 2, Old Navy and Kirkland's, however, the Target and Kohl's remained opened.

"We had plans to go to Shoe Carnival, Kohl's, Target, Walmart and now those plans have changed, [Reporter: What's the backup plan] Back up plan, now we have to go to Little Rock," added Castrejon.

While no injuries were reported and the store will remain closed for some time, Bryant Police will now have to seek another Shoe Carnival for one of their biggest back to school events.

"We select the kids from the Bryant School District to get them some new shoes to start school with, every kid likes to start school with new shoes, and our event was supposed to be for September 3rd, we had scheduled 100 kids to come and get new shoes, so right now we're going to try and work on and figure out a new place to do that," said Sgt. Todd Crowson, Bryant Police.

No word yet on when Shoe Carnival, Old Navy, Rue 21, or Kirkland's will re-open, but Channel 7 will update this story.

ORIGINAL (10:50 A.M.): {}{}

A fire broke out this morning around 8:30 at the Shoe Carnival store in the Alcoa shopping center in Bryant.

Both the Bryant and Benton Fire departments responded and have been joined by the Little Rock Fire Department in battling the blaze.

No injuries have been reported so far.

Besides the Shoe Carnival store, other establishments in the same area have been affected as well. It is unclear how bad is the damage to those as well.

The cause for the fire has not been verified yet.