KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A fire that swept through a historic building downtown here is being classified as suspicious by arson investigators.
The fire at the Crimson Building took more than eight hours to control after catching fire just before midnight Saturday.
A computer services company and seven condominiums were destroyed or damaged in the blaze. A dog also died in the fire, Chief Carlos Perez said.
''We went into the building four times and we were forced back four times and no one was injured,'' Perez said. ''That's what I call successful. It's partly luck but it's also good, hard work.''
The Crimson Building was built in the 1880s as two separate structures before a bank bought them both and combined them in the late 1920s, said Harold Duckett, co-owner of the building.
The three-alarm fire started in the computer services company that occupied the first floor of the building.
The location and time of the blaze promoted officials to label the fire ''suspicious in nature,'' Perez said.
''There is no immediate, obvious cause for the fire to occur at this place at midnight,'' he told The Knoxville News Sentinel. ''The fire had apparently been burning for some time when it was reported.''
The three-story building was only two blocks from the downtown fire station, and the firefighters were able to see the flames when they went outside, Perez said.
