Floral decoration outside of Longmont business set on fire; police investigating

LONGMONT, Colo. ( KDVR ) — Longmont police are investigating an alleged arson that happened outside of a Main Street flower shop on Wednesday night.

Surveillance video from inside A Florae shows a man walking up with a lighter starting a fire from a fall floral decoration outside the store before walking away.

The video shows people around at the time pouring cups of water on the fire trying to put it out.

The shop is where you can find Rachel Hunter, owner of A Florae, six days out of the week putting together beautiful flower arrangements.

“I’ve been doing weddings now for 15 years now. Ive yet to lose any excitement seeing it all come together on wedding day,” said Hunter. “We’re not skipping through a field of daisies. It’s a very physical taxing job.”

It is especially taxing to come up with unique floral designs to draw customers inside.

“We’ve been putting designs out front in a similar fashion for four years,” said Hunter.

So it seemed a little shocking on Wednesday, just after 6:30 p.m., when the display and all their hard work went up in flames.

“It went up pretty fast; it went up in less than 15 seconds,” said Hunter. “Investigators thought the light got too hot and set the dry arrangement on fire.”

As she looked at her surveillance video from inside the store she noticed something else started the flames.

“It was really wild to see somebody casually walk up during such a busy time of the night and light a lighter and set it on fire and just merely go on their way,” Hunter said.

She worried for the tenants living above her shop.

“It could have been immensely worse,” said Hunter. “I highly doubt it’s their first time. What if they did this at 2 a.m.? It would have been a vastly different story.”

While she may not ever know the reason why this happened, she’s choosing to focus on the love and support she has received from the community.

“It’s been really beautiful,” she said. I think it’s a way for the community as a whole to recognize who has been here for this business so that they realize that they will also be there for them.”

Longmont police say this is an ongoing investigation.

“I hope to believe that this wasn’t actually pinpointed on us specifically because we did something, or they had something against us,” Hunter said. “Either way it still hurts.”

Meanwhile, Hunter wants to emphasize the importance of security cameras.

“This person is still at large. They are still out there,” said Hunter. “it could happen to us very easily again. It can happen to our business neighbors.”

She said that if she didn’t have cameras up, the cause of the fire most likely would have been chalked up to a natural cause. She said she’s grateful for her security system and she wants that same reassurance for other businesses and homeowners.

“There were many people on this street when they did the investigation that actually did not have cameras,” Hunter said. “If they do they are not at the front. I would just voice it’s really important to get that set up for yourself because it not only protects that business, but it will protect your neighbors. If more business owners had cameras on this street then it would have been more of an ability to probably catch this person walking by. I want to urge the importance of them having it for their own sake.”

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