Families were seen sifting through the ashes of a place they once called home.

Although no human lives were lost, one woman is completely grief-stricken after finding her pets under all the rubble.

"There were a mother and 8 pups that were left in there, a 9 month old german shepherd puppy, there were two cats and not one of them got out," said Brittny Sutton, Greenvile resident.

Officials say two fire fighters were able to make it to the scene fairly quickly, but it took over ten minutes for other help to arrive.

"To meet national standards, safety standards, we would need four fire fighters on each one of these vehicles," said Lieutenant Steve Thompson of the Greenville Fire Department. "But our minimum standard staffing is two fire fighters, so that's highly deficient, it's dangerous," he said.

The lieutenant says at least 50 percent of the building had sustained damages but that it may have turned out a lot differently if they had received more help sooner.

It's a lack of funding in the town that's causing major issues for the fire department.

"We're trying to look at the staffing issues in all of our departments, we have the issue in our street, police, fire department," said Jasson Urey, Greenvile Town Manager. "I mean even our administrative staff, we've cut back over the years, because of these funding issues and its been because of the erosion of the, the tax base," he said.

"It does take money to have fire fighters on duty, staffing your fire station 24 hours a day. but there is a benefit to that, to the community," said Thompson.

Urey says they're working with the state to propose solutions to the problem