RALEIGH - It will take close to a week for fire investigators to determine what caused a blaze that engulfed an industrial building in downtown Raleigh on Sunday evening, Raleigh fire officials said this morning.

The fire at 1022 Hammell Street displaced 10 to 12 businesses, Raleigh Fire Battalion Chief Jerry Pace said today. The fire began in a second-floor space and does not appear suspicious, Pace added.

Investigators still hoped to interview tenants and other people and were not letting business owners in this morning to examine their damaged spaces.

The structure housed a painting business, commercial recycler and other small businesses, as well as a residential occupant on the second floor, according to Pace. The occupant's identity was not released this morning, and it was not clear whether the fire started in the occupant's space.

There were no injuries reported in the fire, but several of the businesses renting space in the warehouse appear to have suffered significant damages.

Wesley Tutor, owner of Mechanical Services -- which provides air conditioning, heating and refrigeration services -- said the company had been in the building since 1979. He learned about the fire as he watched television Sunday night.

The company's equipment, including welding equipment and power tools, was ruined, though Tutor said he hoped to salvage some information from his computers. He was doubtful that insurance would completely cover the damage. "We're going to have to do it from scratch," he said.

Tutor said the company would not be able to operate because of the fire. "Without phone lines and power out right now, we're shut down," he said. "We're out of business. This is it."

The fire also heavily damaged a cabinet business owned by Terry Self, who was out of the area at the time. Self's friend Oliver Westbrook said Self had just completed a $50,000 set of cabinets that were in the building at the time of the fire.

Danny Hunter, who owns a residential painting business, Hunter and Co., said he thought he was the only person in the building Sunday night when the fire started.

He said he smelled smoke and called the fire department, then hurried downstairs from his upper level office and saw brown smoke billowing from an exhaust fan into the parking area.

Without fire hydrants nearby, firefighters had to run hoses for some distance, he said. "By the time they got to sprinkling it down, [fire] was coming through the roof," Hunter said.

The building's exterior is cinderblock, but its wood interior caught fire quickly, Hunter said.

The fire gutted half the building, including at least six garage bays. The roof appeared to have been destroyed on the burned half of the structure. The building did not have fire alarms, which were not required under the city's building code at the time of the building's construction, Pace said.

Investigators this morning extended a ladder to survey the wreckage.

"We were just waiting for daylight, fixing to make an assessment to see what did cause the fire," said Battalion Chief Jerry Pace.

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