Lauren Rosenthal/KUCB

A warehouse on East Point Road may be a total loss after an early-morning fire ripped through the building.

The warehouse -- which is owned by the Ounalashka Corporation and leased by Pacific Stevedoring -- caught fire around 5 a.m. Wednesday. Pacific Stevedoring employees living in a bunkhouse next door were ordered to evacuate.

Uber Sosa was one of them.

"Someone woke me up," Sosa says. "I was sleeping. It was the police, came knocking on everybody’s door to get out. So everybody had to get out, and we didn’t have time to get anything."

Sosa says he and about 20 people had to walk through plenty of smoke once they made it outside, but no one was injured.

At the same time, more than 15 emergency personnel -- along with volunteers from the Department of Transportation -- started working on the fire. They blocked off about 500 yards of East Point Road around the warehouse and started pumping water into the building.

Five hours into the response, there were still three fire trucks on scene. The warehouse was still standing, though the aluminum siding had blistered and buckled in some places.

Steam and smoke were still rising off the structure, but the fire was contained inside.

Fire chief Abner Hoage says the building appears to be full of basic but highly flammable materials. There may have been tar-coated fishing nets.

"It was reported that there were about 20 pallets of wax-coated fiber board in there, as well as a whole bunch of empty pallets," Hoage says. "And of course, that stuff burns really hot and really long."

A little over a decade ago, a fire destroyed another structure in the same location as this warehouse. It contained the same kind of materials -- pallets and fiber board. Hoage says that fire took three days to extinguish.

"So it could be a while getting everything completely out, to where it’s safe for us to go in and evaluate what happened," Hoage says.

But at this point, Hoage says it’s doesn’t look like there’s anything left to salvage. He estimates about $1.2 million worth of damage has been done, including the value of the physical structure and the equipment stored in it.

That’s a big enough loss that it could trigger an investigation by the state fire marshal. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation may get involved, as well.

The fire department used chemical foam to smother the flames this morning. Some of that foam has leaked out of the building and onto the beach, about 100 yards away. Hoage says fire personnel are planning to notify ADEC about the spill.

Representatives from Pacific Stevedoring and the Ounalashka Corporation couldn’t be reached for comment.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.