Fire Department: Blaze That Destroyed Grapevine Restaurant Not Suspicious

GRAPEVINE (CBSDFW.COM) - A large fire destroyed a Grapevine barbecue restaurant early Monday morning.

It was around 3 a.m. when fire crews arrived to find flames and smoke shooting from the roof of the Baker's Ribs barbecue restaurant along Grapevine Highway, near Bass Pro Drive.

Firefighters immediately determined it was too dangerous to go inside the building, so crews poured water on the fire from above, and made sure it did not spread to a nearby gas station.

It's going to be a while before firefighters learn what caused the fire. The roof and all of the structural support for the building are gone. The business has been deemed a total loss.

Baker's Ribs sent a tweet Monday saying how "deeply saddened" they were to watch the business go  up in flames, but that they were "thankful no one is injured."

Crews from fire departments in Grapevine, Coppell, Euless, Flower Mound and Bedford responded to the fire. Some 40 firefighters spent four hours fighting the fire. No one was inside when the fire broke out an no fire fighters were injured.

Grapevine Fire Chief Darrell Brown said, ".We'll start looking at this thing as soon as the fire is put out and make it safe for investigators and do a search at that point."

The restaurant was remodeled last year and only reopened in the Fall. The original neon sign from the first Baker's Ribs location in Dallas may be the only thing salvageable from the fire.

"With these large restaurant-type buildings... there's not a lot of interior walls in them. They're very open which creates a huge collapse hazard," said Brown.

Chief Brown said the department may try to take aerial pictures or send up a drone to help with the investigation into the cause of the fire. But officials say a preliminary investigation gives no indication the blaze is suspicious.

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