Firefighters continue to work at a fire in St. James that has destroyed a building.

A fire broke out at a warehouse in the 500 block of Roseberry Street yesterday afternoon. Firefighters were still dousing the building with water this morning.

District fire chief Dick Vlaming says they got the call around 2:55. There was heavy smoke and heavy fire when they arrived.

"They put lines in there. We tried to go in and they were just met with heavy smoke conditions and it's just a maze of offices and that and very easy for a firefighter to get lost in there, so I pulled the crews out and we called it a defensive fire."

Crews worked through the night. Vlaming says they were working in difficult conditions, and he tried to change crews as much as possible.

"If a crew wasn't actually working on the fire I got them to sit in the truck and warm up, but we were iced up. Guys couldn't take their masks off, they were all iced up."

Vlaming says the fire was contained to its building of origin.

"There's a building to the north that (was exposed) and we made sure that the fire didn't get into there... there probably will be a little smoke in there. And there's also a little strip mall to the south that we really had to concentrate our water flows on and protect."

Vlaming says the fire crews did a great job, as did a number of other agencies.

"Police had the roads shut off right away, I can't say enough for the police. EMS, they were set up; thank goodness there was nobody that got hurt but they were helping, making sure that firefighters were okay and not getting any hypothermia and stuff so they were great, too. Water works, we had a blown fire hydrant, (they) came and fixed it right away. Hydro, they shut the Hydro off right away from Ellice to St. Matthews."

Vlaming says there are still hot spots in the building. He says it's too dangerous to put firefighters inside.

"We'll be here for a while. I think we're going to start, once the smoke and steam dissipates, we're going to start tearing the building apart."

Vlaming says he expects a truck to be on scene for a couple of days.

No injuries have been reported, and the fire remains under investigation.