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ALBANY — Albany firefighters extinguished a fire Sunday night at an artistic handicrafts store on Lark Street. The cause and source of the fire are under investigation.

Firefighters smashed the glass of the Yamaguchie storefront window about 7:45 p.m. at 221 Lark St. before entering. They used a ladder to access the top floor of the two-story building and broke the windows where smoke was visible. Yamaguchie sells custom pieces of art made of wood.

Albany police blocked off a section of Lark Street for about 30 minutes. 

On Monday morning, Albany Fire Chief Joseph Gregory said firefighters received the call at 6:39 p.m.  and reached the scene within five minutes. He said the investigation into the blaze is ongoing. 

“We don’t want to make any presumptive judgment,” he said. “We have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together before we can make a determination.”

According to the Albany Fire Department, the fire was contained by 7:59 p.m. Gregory said the store sustained fire damage throughout and smoke damage affected the two apartments above. No structural damage was reported on either side of the building. 

A firefighter suffered a non-life-threatening injury. No one else was hurt. The city  relocated the occupant in the first-floor apartment directly above the store during the incident, Gregory said.

As for the second floor, Gregory said firefighters broke the windows to ventilate the area and check for signs of the fire spreading.

“We try and be very thorough in our investigation because obviously we don’t want to leave if there’s any fire still active in the building,” Gregory said.

Mohammad Memon, owner of Rocco’s Laundromat across the street, saw the emergency response vehicles arrive. He said he witnessed smoke emerging from Yamaguchie after firefighters broke the storefront glass.

“They put the water in,” Memon said in an interview Sunday.

Memon added that he knows the resident of the second-floor apartment and attempted to call him by phone, but received no response.

By Monday morning, the storefront window and entrance of Yamaguchie, along with the windows of the second-story apartment, were boarded up. Another entrance also had its window boarded up. A sign declared the building unsafe for occupancy.

Staff at Yamaguchie did not respond to a request for comment.