Firefighters spent Friday morning extinguishing a structure fire at a Santa Barbara storage yard.

The flames were first spotted by a police officer on patrol around 3 a.m., City Fire Department Battalion Chief Michael Hoose told Noozhawk.

When the three responding engine crews got to the scene, they saw large flames at a storage yard facility on the 700 block of Carpinteria St. and called in two additional engines to respond, Hoose said.

He described it as an “aggressive and safe fire attack” along with a search for any possible victims. None were found, and no injuries were reported.

The firefighters knocked down the fire in about 40 minutes and worked on protecting nearby businesses and residences from the flames, Hoose said.

Fire investigators were on the scene Friday morning working to determine a cause, said Ryan DiGuilio of the City Fire Department.

“They’re putting the pieces together right now,” he said.

“The building itself is going to be a total loss, and the contents in it,” he said, describing it as a 40-foot-by-30-foot structure.

It appeared to be used for storage and working on cars, so there were a lot of flammable liquids, spare tires and other items that made the fire burn fast and big, DiGuilio said.

“It’s kind of one of those worst-case scenarios where it’s not a huge building but the things inside are super flammable,” he said.

Firefighters from the City Fire Department and Montecito Fire Protection District at the scene were able to keep the flames from spreading to nearby business’ buildings, he added, but there was a some minor exterior damage to storage containers and other structures.

The cause is still under investigation.

“Early morning fires are not usually good for us because people aren’t up, they don’t’ get reported quickly,” DiGuilio said. “Which, added to a fire in this type of facility that had the contents in it, it just made it grow very rapidly before we even arrived on scene.”

“Those storage yard fires are nasty for us, for sure.”

Santa Barbara police officers and American Medical Response ambulance crew also responded to the fire scene Friday morning.

About a half hour before the Carpinteria Street fire call, the department responded to a small vegetation fire in the area of Highway 101 and Los Patos Way, Hoose said.

“It was a busy morning for the fire department,” he said.