Alex N. Gecan

@GeeksterTweets

TOMS RIVER - An office building burned for two hours Thursday morning - igniting a stash of ammunition somewhere inside - and smoldered for hours longer after firefighters extinguished the flames.

Township firefighters first got a call about the fire at 94 East Water St. at 3:39 a.m., and got it under control by 5:35 a.m., according to Toms River Fire Department District 1 Chief John Gonzalez. At least one of the business owners headquartered there had lost another office to fire in 2014.

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Early on in their attack on the fire, firefighters had to clear away from the building as ammunition ignited.

"It was popping for a while - for a good 10 minutes, there was rounds going off," Gonzalez said.

In a prepared statement later in the morning, police Officer Ralph Stocco said that "The investigators determined that the building's owner is a competitive shooter and there were approximately 100,000 rounds of ammunition stored within the building."

According to the county tax board, Theodore and Denise Domaracki own the building.

The ammo stash came as a surprise to Anysia Kiel, who runs Soul-Centered Healing LLC out of the building. She said she is a "healing medium."

A relative called Kiel around 4 a.m., and she said she got to the office 15 minutes later. "It was just me and the firemen."

Besides Kiel's office, the building is home to In Touch Massage Therapy, NTS Drywall Inc., NJ Warehousemen & Movers, Seaport Yacht Sales, Kathleen W. Hughes LCSW Counseling and Mindful Solutions LLC, according to the marquee outside.

Kiel moved into the building in June 2014. The building where she had kept her office, at 27 Washington St., caught fire on May 16 of that year, burning out several businesses altogether and resulting in water damage to others.

"We could not recover anything from the building because it was structurally unstable, so we had to start over again. But sometimes starting over is a good thing," Kiel wrote in a prepared statement after the 2014 fire. Investigators later said the fire was an accident.

She seemed to take the 2016 blaze in stride as well. She had client meetings scheduled for that very evening.

"Can't change it, this is where it's at. I just need to find a new building and keep moving," she said Thursday. "I'm grateful that my office didn't totally burn like the other offices, that's a blessing."

Like Soul-Centered Healing, non-profit Hometown Heroes, another of the businesses hit hard by that Washington Street blaze in June 2014, also lost a second office to fire when its new headquarters at 236 Washington St. burned down last May.

That office and the East Water Street building are barely 200 meters apart. Gonzalez said that firefighters used one of the same hydrants to fight the East Water Street fire as they had used to extinguish the blaze at 236 Washington St.

"I think it speaks louder to the fact that we need to do better inspections of these old buildings in downtown Toms River," Kiel said.

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None of the 75 firefighters at the scene were injured. No one was inside when the fire started, Gonzalez said. A built-in sprinkler system also helped keep the flames at bay as the firefighters brought hoses to bear.

"It held the fire in check until we could find it and get it under control," the chief said.

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The Toms River Police Department and Bureau of Fire Prevention, arson experts from the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office and crime scene investigators from the Ocean County Sheriff's Office were investigating the source of the fire Thursday morning, authorities said. All Toms River companies responded to the fire, as did the Beachwood, Manitou Park and Island Heights volunteer fire companies. Fire companies from Brick, Manchester and Pine Beach provided mutual aid coverage,

Alex N. Gecan: 732-643-4043; agecan@gannettnj.com