ST. LOUIS – A massive fire overnight destroyed a former church that had been converted into an indoor skate park.

The four-alarm fire at Sk8 Liborius began around 10:45 p.m. Wednesday. Firefighters raced to Hogan and North Market streets in an effort to save the 134-year-old Gothic Revival church building.

“I got a call letting me know the church was on fire,” said Bishop Michael Robinson, founder and CEO of City Hope, located next door. “There was a small fire in the rectory that spread to the church.”

Bishop Robinson said the three people in his shelter got out safely. Two people in the church, and one in the rectory, also escaped uninjured from the quickly-spreading fire.

“I couldn’t even get off the highway and saw the flames shooting in the sky and smoke all over,” he said. “It was horrible.”

One of the owners of the building involved with Sk8 Liborius for years called it a devastating loss.

Firefighters were also dousing nearby buildings, including newer homes near the old church, to make sure the embers did not catch those structures on fire.

“We had a tremendous amount of embers coming off the church structure that were affecting two blocks a little bit to the north,” St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.

Firefighters were able to prevent the fire from spreading to other nearby buildings. Chief Jenkerson said the embers were such a problem that they caught a vacant home on fire two blocks away from the scene.

“Those embers start fires,” Jenkerson said. “That’s nothing more than fireworks. So, we know with all the bottle rockets and fireworks they’re going to be shooting, we’re going to have issues, and it doesn’t take much for these roofs to catch. We’ve got probably 15 residential structures that we covered in water.”

A cause for the fire is still under investigation.