No one was injured in the fire, but the blaze destroyed four upstairs apartments in the building at 213 Thames St.

Around 8 p.m. Thames Street — claoked in darkness due to the neighborhood's power being shut off — was an eerie scene. Workers guided in large wrecking machines to take down the building. About 10 p.m. the order was given to begin the demolition.

“This is the biggest fire this city has seen in 20 years,” said Groton City firefighter Daniel Tompkins, who was covered in a layer of soot.

As the fire raged, the smoke was brown and thick as mud, rolling up the hilly streets of Groton City to where dozens of people covered their mouths as they watched the building burn to a shell. Smoke from the fire, which started just before 12:30 p.m., floated from the edge of the Thames River in a cloud. From the Gold Star Memorial Bridge, it was a smudge on the landscape.

For hours, Ken's Tackle Shop was completely invisible — 12 fire departments appeared to be spraying thick jets of water at an opaque, noxious cloud.

Then the wind changed, opening holes in the darkness. A buoy and a fishing net appeared, mixed among the broken shards of the shattered display window.

“It's my whole life,” Dorothy Streeter said as she watched two lifetimes disappear in front of her.

The tackle shop, which abuts the river, has marked Thames Street for more than 50 years. Streeter took the business over from her parents after her father, Kenneth Streeter, passed away in 1972. For the first part of its career, the shop — which sold rods, hooks, lures and bait year-round to clammers and anglers — was a little further south. In 1984, Streeter moved the shop to its present location across from the post office.

Streeter opened the shop by 6 a.m., as usual, on Wednesday. It was a little after noon when the smoke started coming up through the floorboards, she said, tears in her eyes. She said that while she has insurance, she does not know whether she would be able to rebuild because she does not own the building.

The building, built in 1903, is owned by John Syragakis, who owns several Thames Street properties, according to city records. He could not be reached to comment Wednesday.

Streeter said fishing enthusiasts from as far away as Hartford visited the shop. Dan Bryant, a city mail carrier, was in the shop delivering the mail when the fire started. Bryant said a worker was downstairs working on a problematic fuse when he suddenly ran upstairs and said the place was on fire. The three of them ran from the building to call 911, he said.

“Within three seconds, the store was engulfed in flames,” Bryant said.

With the surrounding streets closed and filled with fire trucks, Bryant was unable to get his mail truck out from behind the post office to finish his route. He stood gaping with other bystanders on the sidewalk, his mailbag still slung across his body.

From the back porch of nearby Paul's Pasta, Barry Schuman stared at what had been his upstairs apartment. He could see a plant still sitting in the sill of his smashed-out window.

“I don't know if I'm OK or not,” he said.

Schuman said everything he owned, except his car and the clothes on his back, were inside.

A friend who knew where he lived called Schuman at Electric Boat, where he works, to tell him that his apartment building was on fire.

Fire Chief Nicholas DeLia said none of the residents in the three rented apartments were home when the fire started. The other apartment was vacant. For several minutes, firefighters were unable to break through a basement door to attack the fire.

DeLia said firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading from the brick building to a wooden structure just a few feet away. Utility workers shut down power to the area, DeLia said, to prevent flames from spreading to a utility pole and wires adjacent to the building.

“The whole mission has been to keep it inside this box,” DeLia said Wednesday.

By 3 p.m., the first and second floors had collapsed into the basement, DeLia said. The fire essentially turned the building into a gigantic oven, with its brick walls cracking and crumbling.

“We've got every piece of equipment possible attacking this fire,” DeLia said as smoke continued to billow from the building behind him.

DeLia said the state fire marshal's office would be investigating the cause of the fire, which was expected to smolder into the night. Firefighters cut holes in the foundation to push in hose, but DeLia said they were having a difficult time getting to the heart of the fire.

The American Red Cross was on the scene to aid displaced tenants, as was Canteen 1, which provided food and drink free of charge to exhausted and soot-covered emergency workers.

The city opened its municipal complex as a shelter to those displaced by the evening power outage, and the Red Cross was there with food and water for anyone affected.

“It's an inconvenience for the public,” said Phil Tuthill, the city's emergency director. “I just hope everybody understands.”

Officials predicted power would be restored to the area around midnight.

Standing on the sidewalk with a dozen other spectators, Arlene Savago, who lives further down the street, said she dreamed about a fire the night before. In the dream, she said, her apartment was on fire and she had to throw her cats from the window to save them.

“I just feel so bad for everyone involved,” she said.

j.wernau@theday.com

Day Staff Writer M. Matthew Clark contributed to this report.