~ About 20 firefighters responded to the call at 5:30 a.m. and fought the fire for about three hours before it was out.

A fire at a Cape Girardeau County storage unit Thursday destroyed one of the business' buildings and all the belongings of a local family.

"I had everything in that unit," said Sharon Burton as she sorted through what was left of her belongings at C&G Mini Storage on Highway 34.

Burton said she's remodeling her home and her daughter is looking for a house. She said her daughter and grandchildren had also stored all of their belongings at the storage unit during the transition.

"All of our keepsakes were in there," she said. "Our valuable paperwork, my daughter's baby crib that was a keepsake, their hope chest -- everything."

About 20 area firefighters responded to the 5:30 a.m. call and fought the fire for about three hours before it was out. The fire consumed one of two of the business' buildings.

Chief Jerry Aufdenberg of Millersville Fire and Rescue said the firefighters had a hard time getting into the building so they could fight the fire.

"We had to cut the doors off the storage units and cut the locks," he said. "By the time we got here the springs on the doors were busted due to the fire, so getting to it was difficult."

Neighbors alerted Gary Dudley, owner of C&G Mini Storage, early in the morning that the building was on fire.

"This was really totally unexpected," Dudley said. "I'm in shock."

Dudley said he has insurance on the building, but because the stored items aren't his property, he was unable to insure the contents of the units.

"I had to put it in the contracts with my customers that they were responsible for having renter's insurance in case something like this happened," he said.

Dudley said he is concerned for his customers and hopes they are all insured.

He also believed that his metal buildings would have been less susceptible to a fire. "I was sure in a metal building a fire would be more contained," he said.

Fire chiefs of both Millersville and Bollinger County fire departments said that while many people believe metal will contain a fire better than other building materials, that isn't always the case.

"There were two forces working against us with this fire," said chief Jim Bollinger of Bollinger County Volunteer Fire Department. "Convection and conduction."

Items in the units were stacked high against the metal walls, which then conducted the heat to the stacks on the other side to the point of combustion.

"Just like a hot spoon on a frying pan," Bollinger said. "Metal walls are good conductors."

Aufdenberg said a six-inch gap between the walls of the units and the ceiling of the building enabled convection forces to spread the fire as the heat rose.

Aufdenberg was unsure what caused the fire.