A once famous and now abandoned department store in Niagara Falls burned to the ground Sunday after firefighters spent over eight hours battling the stubborn flames that refused to burn out.

Rosbergs department store at Queen Street and Erie Avenue was once a community icon but had been abandoned for several years.

Seeing the fire was too much for Don Carrel, the grandson of founder Jacob Rosberg.

"They opened this in 1916 as a small workman's clothing store," he said.

"It was a very small portion of this building and my mother who was thirteen at the time stayed in the store..." he said, unable to finish his sentence as he broke down in tears.

The fire started at 5:21 a.m. on Sunday morning. It raged to four alarms, the third highest level of severity. Every firefighter in the city was on hand to battle the blaze.

The fire of this scale is so unusual in Niagara Falls that the fire department issued its first ever news release to inform media and the public of the damage.

Because of the threat of collapse, firefighters were forced to fight it from outside the building, which made it more difficult to stop the flames.

The fire department tells CTV.ca that the floor and roof did collapse. A single wall with a pile of debris in the middle is all that is left.

There were no injuries but Paul Augustino lost an art display he put up at the front of the building.

"There is no power there is no gas, there is no source of combustion so how that would (a fire) happen?" he said.

The Niagara Falls fire department says it is too early to know what caused the flames, but officials say people often wander into vacant buildings and there was lightning last night.

Local residents say the store was the place to go if you wanted to buy something.

Niagara Falls Mayor Ted Salci said the store gave people in the city many fond memories.

"It's just a shame to see it go. I remember as a young boy shopping here with my mother," he said.

"Historic Niagara," the new owners of the building, had planned to renovate it and turn it into an iconic downtown destination.

Because of the collapse, the demolition already began Sunday afternoon.