Weary fire crews continued to put out hot spots in the Cedar Tree Restaurant located in the 100 block of Main Street in downtown North Bay.
Greg Saunders, deputy fire chief stated at 8 a.m. that firefighters had been working on the blaze for over 8 hours.
"The guys are tired, we made entry 10 or 12 times," said Saunders about the fire which was called in shortly after midnight.
"We were making some headway on the fire but it got into the roof and once it got into the roof it was just too far gone at that point."
See related: VIDEO: Fire crews battle downtown blaze
The building also housed six apartments upstairs. Saunders confirmed everyone got out safely.
"I will say everybody was able to safely evacuate, firefighters did get in and we were able to conduct a search and confirmed that everybody did get out of the building," he said.
However, the building itself was not so fortunate but it is not being treated as suspicious,
"That whole building is completely destroyed at this point," said Saunders.
See related: Major downtown fire
It was an eerie scene as this same block of downtown North Bay was hit hard by another fire in late December 2019.
"These buildings are hard, the fire gets into these void spaces and they are hard to get to," stated Saunders about the challenges of battling fires in old buildings.
"We will be on scene for most of the day today getting this fire fully extinguished," said Saunders noting that includes the 100 and 200 block of Main Street East.
