A three-alarm fire that topped $1.1 million in losses destroyed four businesses in the 700 block of North Main Street including Rocko’s bar early Tuesday morning.

The first alarm was sounded at 3:59 a.m. according to fire marshal Lance Rey and the second and third came in only minutes later. 

“Structurally this building is destroyed,” Rey said.

Literally turned to ash in the fire,  in addition to Rocko’s,  was the Clipper Hair Salon, AKI’s Food to Go and Grocery along with a learning center located in the center of the strip of business fronts located in a separate structure behind Chubby’s Diner and across from the Waffle Shop just south of Golden West School.

The rear unit in the 11,700-square-foot building formerly housed a Mexican restaurant, but was vacant at the time of the fire.   The ceilings in all the units were gone exposing the girders of the metal roof to fire inspectors.

One firefighter was transported to the hospital by Manteca District Ambulance with heat exhaustion, but was reported to be doing better late Tuesday.   

Rocko’s owner J.D. Willis said he was awakened by the burglar alarm sounding remotely at his home that was triggered when firemen kicked in the front door of his bar location.  He said he drove to his business and saw heavy smoke then fire coming from the building as he entered the driveway.

Mutual-aid was called in from Ripon, Tracy, Sharpe Depot and the Lathrop-Manteca fire agencies to fight the blaze that melted six steel girders, according to firefighters.  The metal roof settled toward the ground as firefighters aggressively attacked the inferno.

Ripon sent its 100-foot aerial ladder truck to the blaze.

When firefighters arrived on the scene they reportedly found heavy smoke and fire emitting from the center of the strip mall, according to Manteca Fire Chief Kirk Waters. 

“Firefighters attempted an aggressive interior attack but were forced to retreat from the intense heat and a partial roof collapse.  Fire crews made trench cuts to the roof on adjacent aspects of the main building to stop the spread of the fire through the common attic,” he said.

Waters added that firefighters were then able to knock down the fire from the exterior and eventually extinguish the interior fire.

He added that fire crews from the various departments were successful in isolating the fire to the main building and prevented extension into a nearby residential subdivision.

There were six other fires that occurred during the night including dumpsters in the North Main Street area and a set of tree fires that occurred about 8:30 Monday night behind the Valero gas station in the 700 block of East Yosemite Avenue, firemen said.

An arson fire occurred in a dumpster at Rocko’s in the midnight hours early Saturday morning after the bar staff asked an apparently homeless man to leave who they said had been causing a disturbance.

A fire department spokesman late Tuesday afternoon said the department is continuing its investigation to determine the cause of the fire.  They are not ruling out possible arson as county arson investigators were on the scene during the morning hours.  However, they are not suggesting it was caused by an arsonist.

It appeared that the fire may have started from two dumpsters housed in a chain link enclosure behind the building and that the fire may have spread up the outside of the building at that location by the fire pattern left on the rear wall.

The building was built in 1984 when the city code did not require fire breaks to be built into the attic – an attic that joined all of the business units below.  Firemen noted once the fire made its way into the attic area, it obviously could spread to all the business units in the structure where there were no fire sprinklers installed.

Waters set the estimated loss to the building at $750,000 with an estimated loss to the contents at $400,000. The fire department turned the building over to its Bay Area-based owners after monitoring the structure all day for possible flare-ups. Damage was so extensive there was little clean-up firemen could accomplish.

There were a total of 39 firefighters on the scene with 33 regular and six reserves. Emergency callback procedures were initiated and full-time firefighters came in from home as well as reserve firefighters.   Crews were on the scene for 10 hours.

Waters added that reserve firefighters served at the scene while the full-time firefighters from home staffed the stations and responded to several other emergencies within the city.