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Firefighters finally had a blaze at Jim’s Steaks in South Philadelphia under control Friday afternoon, several hours after it broke out and weaved through the popular cheesesteak joint's heating and cooling system.
More than 100 firefighters responded to the blaze and they had a hard time putting it out because of difficult to access flames snaking through the building's HVAC system, Philadelphia Fire Department Commissioner Adam Thiel said at a press conference shortly before 2 p.m. Eventually, the fire was placed under control, officials at the scene said.
“We’re very concerned about the structural stability of this building. There really is almost no way to assess that," Thiel said. "So again, we’re taking a defensive posture in an abundance of caution, and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to preserve as much of the property as possible – at least the building itself.”
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Firefighters responded to the eatery on the corner of 4th and South streets after someone reported that some wires had caught fire around 9:15 a.m., Thiel said. Smoke could be seen billowing from every floor of the four-story building as firefighters knocked down windows.
The floors on top of the cheesesteak shop were empty and are used for storage, Thiel noted.
Jim's Steaks first opened in 1939 in West Philadelphia, but the South Street location first opened in 1976. The building on South Street was originally built around 1900, according to city property records.
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A manager at the eatery told NBC10 the air conditioning had stopped working in the morning and then started smoking. That's when she said she got everyone out of the building. Everyone was OK, the manager said.
NBC10's Miguel Martinez-Valle was at the scene and reported shortly after 11 a.m. that firefighters were evacuated from the building and people in the vicinity were told to back up.
Firefighters seemed to be focusing their efforts on an HVAC unit, dousing it with water from above and below. However, Thiel said, crews were not "drowning" the building with water because they believed the fire was in the ducts.
The blaze was contained to the restaurant, but crews were proceeding with caution because of the risk that the building was structurally unstable.
“This is a very challenging incident and right now we’re trying to balance the risk and benefit of our firefighters’ lives and protecting the property here at this iconic building and everywhere that’s attached to it," Thiel said, referencing an incident in which a firefighter died last month after a building collapsed following another blaze.