Firefighters in Santa Maria battled a fully involved structure fire early Tuesday morning at a vacant commercial building and have launched an investigation into how it started.

At 12:10 a.m., crews from the Santa Maria Fire Department responded to the 1900 block of South Broadway as huge flames rose from the structure. 

Upon arriving at the site, firefighters entered to determine the building was empty.

“Crews made an aggressive search in the beginning to verify nobody was in there,” Battalion Chief Anthony Clayburg said.

After the confirming its vacant status and as the fire raged, crews took a defensive approach, applying water from the outside until they had knocked down the flames, Clayburg said.

The structure, occupied by transients for a time, lacked fire sprinklers or smoke detectors.

“Investigators are looking into that as to how it was started,” Clayburg said. “There’s nothing determined yet.”

The building formerly housed Next Day Signs, but has sat empty for years with plywood boards covering some areas that had large glass windows at the front of the structure.

Two years ago, the Santa Maria Planning Commission approved a request to build The Human Bean coffee shop at the site, but the project hasn’t materialized.

The building had been scheduled for demolition to make way for a new business, but the timeline for the removal wasn’t clear.

While city firefighters attacked the blaze and remained at the scene for more than two hours, personnel from the Santa Barbara County Fire Department and Cal Fire provided coverage to handle other calls in Santa Maria, Clayburg added.

Firefighters responded to the call in the early hours of October, which is recognized as National Fire Prevention Month across the country.