BRANDON, Fla. — The start of the new school year is just around the corner, but right now, some McClane Middle School students have nowhere to go.

"It was devastation. Like, 'Oh my gosh, what are they going to do now? What are they going to do with the kids? Where are the kids going to go to school now? There’s no way in three weeks they’re going to be able to fix this,'" said Jessica Shaw, whose daughter is a student at McClane.

She learned from a friend Friday night that one of the buildings on campus was in flames.

Shaw and her husband went to check it out, and say you could feel the heat from across the street.

“You could see the fire department from all angles trying to put it out and the roof was just caving in,” said Shaw.

Officials with Hillsborough County Fire and Rescue say they responded to the scene just after 11 p.m. Friday and saw flames shooting from the roof of the 10,000-square-foot classroom building.

The building is believed to be a total loss, but code enforcement will be on scene in the coming days to determine the extent of the damage.

Officials are now trying to figure out what caused it.

One possible explanation is lightning, but Spectrum Bay News 9 Meteorologist Josh Linker says the last reported lightning strike in that area was hours earlier.

"This is at 10 o'clock and the storms are all the way up in western Pasco County at that point, and that was still an hour before, even more than an hour before the call came in," said Linker.

He says lightning would produce a flame immediately, and he thinks it's highly unlikely no one would notice the flames for hours.

HCFR says the investigation into an official cause could take a week to complete.

Now the question remains, how will the district proceed with the start of the school year?

“I am concerned with what’s going to happen from here, what they’re going to do with the kids,” said Shaw.

It’s something the district is already working on.

A spokesperson for the school said in a statement, “We believe we will be able to use the school and will work to move students to other parts of the campus when school starts in three weeks.”

The statement also assures parents and students structural engineers will be evaluating the walls of nearby buildings in the coming days to make sure there is no residual damage.