Business owner searching for answers in building fire

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New surveillance video has been released of a fire at a local business whose owner believes was no accident.

It's been just over a month since the fire at I.C.E. Motorsports off of Highway 85. The business has been located in the 5100 block of Highway 85 near Forest Park for more than a decade, but its owner said he has been building it up for the past 20 years only to find it destroyed by a fire.

"We are still in the waiting process, it is an ongoing investigation right now," owner Freddie Dixon says. 

Dixon said the process to clean up and find answers has been slow.  

"It's a tedious process. Sometimes you think it is going to be real quick and someone is going to get caught and then nothing happens," he said.

On July 7, around 4 in the morning, the custom automotive business went up in flames. Dixon's new insurance policy was just one day from starting. 

In a surveillance video obtained by FOX 5, you can see the fire roaring from the security camera of a nearby business.

A car is seen nearby, along with a person walking away.

However, Clayton County authorities have not said that the individual is connected to the fire.

Dixon believes the fire was no mistake.

A hole was found cut into the side of the building, directly into the office, where it's believed the fire started.

Dixon says the cleanup process has been slow, and the next steps with insurance are uncertain, as long as the case is wide open. 

"We need to do some things really quick," he said. "I want to close this and figure out why, what was the situation, what was the motive?" 

In the meantime, he says he is able to run a business on a small scale. His former customers and neighbors continue to do what they can to see him through.

"People that I have not seen in a while, pulling up, saying 'Hey man, here's this, here's that. I can't do much but I can give you this.' It has just been overwhelming and I just really appreciate it because people don't have to do anything," he said.