A three alarm fire just minutes before 4 a.m. today gutted Rocko’s bar in the 700 block of North Main Street bringing arson investigators to the scene about 10 a.m.

The 11,700 square foot building was also home to an oriental market, a learning center and a hair salon. Seven staffers at Rocko’s are without a job as are three at the adjacent hair salon.

A fire department spokesman Lance Rey said there were eight dumpster fires reported in the city at about the same time with one engine having to be pulled away from the Rocko’s blaze.

Mutual-aid was called in from Ripon, Tracy, Sharpe Depot and the Lathrop-Manteca fire departments to fight the blaze that burned so hot it melted steel girders. The center of the roof fell in with firefighters standing topside. No one was injured in the fire, Rey said.

The other businesses that were destroyed included the Clipper Hair Salon, AKI’s Food to Go and Oriental Grocery along with a learning center. Rocko’s itself occupied some 2,700 feet of the set of shops that ran back towards what once was a Mexican restaurant and a miniature golf course.

Rey noted that the extreme heat of the fire melted six different steel girders in the attic. “Structurally this building is destroyed,” he said. Manteca firefighters are continuing their mop up effort throughout the day Tuesday.