Popular restaurant gutted by fire early Wednesday morning

A fire destroyed the second floor of the North Fourth Avenue restaurant FireFly Food and Spirits early yesterday morning.

The cause of the fire at 509 N. Fourth Ave. is unknown, fire officials said.

At 1:50 a.m. Randy Lopez, manager of Plush nightclub across from Firefly on East Sixth Street, went to take out the trash behind his building and saw flames billowing from FireFly's roof and second story windows.

Lopez said he called the fire department.

Fire officials responded immediately and put out the two-alarm fire, which broke out windows on the building's top floor, causing $200,000 worth of damage, said Randy Ogden, deputy chief of Tucson Fire Department.

FireFly is between Dairy Queen and Bett's Printing Company on North Fourth Avenue.

There was no one in or around the building when the fire started, Ogden said.

Most of the damage was contained to the second floor and none of the adjacent buildings were harmed, he said.

The development services department of the City of Tucson deemed the building unsafe to occupy.

Lopez said he thought he was the first to report the fire and was ironically having fire sprinklers installed at Plush yesterday afternoon.

Marci Conklin, owner of the Chocolate Iguana across from FireFly on, said she didn't know the owners personally, but said they came into her shop often.

Conklin said she was surprised to see the damage yesterday morning.