TACOMA, Wash. — Tacoma firefighters battled a fire at a commercial building along Pacific Avenue on Tuesday.
The two-alarm fire started just before 8 a.m., and flames shot out of Buddy’s Home Furnishings near South 82nd Street and Pacific Avenue.
By the time firefighters arrived, smoke was already coming out of the roof and the building was too hot to enter.
Carl Fisher says he usually comes out around 7 a.m. to set up shop on Pacific Ave. He was the one who called in the fire Tuesday morning.
"It was like an atomic bomb went off, this huge explosion - it was like 50 or 100 feet tall flames coming up off the top of the roof, then I decided I better call 911," Fisher said.
More than 50 firefighters were on scene fighting the blaze.
"Since most of the fire was overhead in the roof, we had to take a defensive strategy,” said Tacoma Fire Department spokesperson Joe Meinecke.
Both directions of Pacific Avenue were closed between South 82nd Street and South 84th Street for most of the day while crews fought to contain the fire.
The operations left Efren Garibay's barbershop chair empty on Tuesday.
"I thought it would have been out by now, but it's been hours," Garibay said. "My head was hurting when I first got in here, the smoke was going through the cracks, and it still is."
No one was inside the building when firefighters arrived and there were no injuries reported.
Investigators will arrive at the scene on Wednesday to try and determine how the fire started.