The smell of smoke was choking even a half-mile away and the glow from the flames lit up the Thanksgiving night as three downtown Astoria buildings were severely damaged by fire.

A large turnout of firefighters fought the three-alarm blaze – and the fire chief’s decision to call for extra help right away may have saved other buildings.

The blaze, at 951 Commercial St., severely damaged the interior of the Caby coffeeshop and the former flower shop next door, as well as the Bank of America building on the corner.

Firefighters were expected to continue clean-up work well into the morning, casting a cloud over downtown merchants’ long-awaited after-Thanksgiving kick-off to the Christmas shopping season.

The fire started just before 11 p.m. and Astoria fire crews responded. Astoria Fire Chief Lenard Hansen quickly upgraded the two-alarm call to three, calling in reinforcements from just about every neighboring jurisdiction.

While Astoria career and volunteer firefighters used a ladder truck to beat down the flames from the north side on Commercial Street, crew members from Seaside Fire Department parked their ladder truck in the sunken parking lot next to the Labor Temple off Duane and directed a stream of water down on the roof from the other side.

By midnight it had become a spectacle as the glow of red and white lights on trucks lit up the night sky all around town. Astoria police officers cordoned off a three-block area with yellow tape as a scattered crowd of onlookers on every corner of Commercial Street watched the action, snapping photos and chatting, oblivious to the cold and drizzle.

Firefighters kept a constant stream of water on the Commercial Street side of the buildings as others ferried oxygen equipment to a staging area opposite and swapped new ones for empty tanks.

At 1:30 a.m. the fire briefly kicked up again, but was beaten down by constant streams from more than four hoses, directed by three-person teams. Firefighters used poles like medieval pikes to break windows to create spaces for new steams of water when flames could be seen glowing inside the storefronts. At one point, as they attacked the east wall of the Bank of America building, an alarm went off, causing onlookers to chuckle.

There were grim faces all round, however, when flames on the roof of the bank building above the Tokyo Teriyaki storefront reignited about 3 a.m., causing firefighters to concentrate their attention around to the 10th Street side, They set up a powerful spray through the broken windows of the Japanese restaurant as the two ladder truck crews from Astoria and Seaside concentrated the force of their hoses on the southeast corner of the building.

Flames on the roof above leaped up to 10 feet into the air and thick brown smoke filled the entire block. Mitch Mitchum, former city public works director, has an ownership in the buildings. He watched and took photos with his cell phone as the flames were doused again and again.

Many fire departments and agencies assisted with various duties at the scene or stood by at other stations in case there were other calls. They included Olney-Walluski, Lewis and Clark, Warrenton, Gearhart and Knappa-Svensen-Burnside firefighters, who responded and helped at the scene. Personnel from Astoria Police Department, Oregon State Police, the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Department and Medix ambulance were on hand too.

Although the bank at and least three storefronts were seriously damaged, it appeared that the Drina Daisy restaurant and the offices of the Bradwood Landing LNG company escaped fire damage. There were reports, however, of smoke lingering in part of the Labor Temple’s bar.

The cause of the fire and the monetary cost of the damage were not immediately available.