A garments showroom on the second floor of a commercial building on Park Street caught fire early on Thursday.

Park Street woke up to the sight of a blazing building on Thursday morning. Seven tenders took around eight hours to douse the flames, which were spotted by the building’s guards. The fire was put off by 8.20am.

Thick smoke was seen coming out of the second floor of a four-storey building at 48A Park Street, near the Mullickbazar crossing, around 1am on Thursday. The building houses 22 showrooms of garments, saris, handloom goods and jewellery, including sari store Suruchi.

Police cordoned off the area to ensure traffic was not affected.

Firemen outside the commercial building on Thursday evening. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

By the time the fire was detected, the flames had spread across AP for Women, a garments showroom on the floor above Suruchi.

But no one was injured or trapped as all shops in the building were closed and empty, police said.

“The guards spotted the fire and alerted us. A forensic team came and collected samples from the shop. The cause or origin of the fire is yet to be established,” said Alok Agarwal, whose brother-in-law owns AP for Women.

Glass windows of the showroom started breaking because of the the heat generated inside as the flames leapt upwards.

The fire was contained before it could reach the lower or upper floors, officers of Shakespeare Sarani police station said.

“It was sheer luck that the fire could be contained in time. All the floors are full of inflammable articles such as fabric,” an officer said.

Firefighters used ladders to reach the second-floor windows and sprayed water from the front of the building. Another team approached the showroom from its entrance inside the building.

“There are so many buildings in the neighbourhood. There was every possibility if the fire spreading,” said a resident of Loudon Street, a stone’s throw from the spot.