Firefighters have been praised for managing to prevent the flames spreading to neighbouring shops and houses.

“The firies and the police were fantastic, I couldn’t give them enough thanks,” said Kerrie Solomon, the daughter-in-law of the building’s owners Barry and Dot Solomon.

They bought the historic building in Milton in 1978, and set up a family-run tyre and mechanical business that established a band of loyal customers.

“We had people coming from Sydney and Canberra to have their work done by us, because they liked the work we did,” Kerrie explained.

While it was a family business run by Barry and Dot, their children Darren and Kerrie Solomon and Kim and Mark McCarthy, it also had nine staff members who had been with the business for decades and “are pretty much family,” Kerrie said.

“The thing I worry most about is our staff,” she explained.

Kerrie said the business was locked up as normal at 6pm on Wednesday, but according to police someone walking past the building noticed a small fire in the front office about 10.20pm.

They dialled 000 and emergency services were there in minutes, but by then the fire had engulfed the building.

There were several explosions as fuel drums and tanks of diesel and kerosene erupted.

Superintendent Ian Krimmer for Fire and Rescue NSW said the 60 Fire and Rescue and Rural Fire Service personnel who battled searing heat and heavy smoke for an hour to bring the fire under control did “an outstanding job”.

Superintendent Krimmer said two people were evacuated from a neighbouring house and 20 people from the immediate area, but the firefighters managed to stop the flames spreading.

Fire investigators and detectives were examining the building’s remains on Thursday morning to try to determine the cause of the blaze, with the site officially handed over to police about 2pm.