Pusateri’s president Frank Luchetta says the Toronto grocery store will rebuild after a “devastating” fire Saturday that heavily damaged the family-owned flagship location on Avenue Rd. north of Lawrence.

“For sure we’ll rebuild,” said Luchetta, who was at the site Sunday with a provincial fire marshal who had been called in to investigate. “We have to access the damage and see what’s salvageable.”

Damage “is pretty extensive, from what we’ve heard from firefighters,” said Luchetta. The building is structurally sound, he said, but there was extensive water damage from sprinklers as well as from smoke.

Fire marshals are called in when there’s a death, a suspicion of arson or damage estimated at $500,000 or more.

By Sunday afternoon, no one had been allowed back into the 35,000-square-foot building that houses a grocery store and the company’s head office, which together employ about 180 workers in total.

The store closed at 7 p.m. Saturday, and the last employee left around 7:45 p.m., said Luchetta, before the cleaning crew came in. Alarms went off about an hour later and the building was evacuated.

Firefighters who were first on scene Saturday night after the 8:45 p.m. call encountered a tremendous amount of smoke and heat, said Toronto district fire chief Stephan Powell.

Powell said it was difficult for crews to pinpoint the start of the blaze, and the fire department brought in thermal imaging cameras that showed that the fire was heaviest in the basement.

About 120 firefighters rotated in and out of the building during the three-alarm fire, which was under control by 11 p.m.

Powell said some firefighters went through three canisters of air, which each last about 30 minutes. Toronto paramedics were on-scene to ensure the firefighters didn’t overheat — called metabolic heat build up — because the clothes they wear don’t allow the body to cool down.

Cooling chairs, which look like modified lawn chairs, are used to bring down a firefighter’s body temperature. The armrests are filled with water and ice, and Powell says cooling the forearms is one of the quickest ways to bring down the body core temperature.