ASTORIA — Firefighters are suspicious about the origins of flames that ripped through the site of a longtime seafood cannery in Astoria, a city spokesman said Friday.

The fire late Thursday destroyed a cafe and office building once part of the Bumble Bee cannery. The company shut down its Astoria operations in 1980.

Fire officials said they were fighting one fire in the cafe when a second broke out in the next-door building that has been converted to office and commercial use.

Suspicions that the blazes had been set were first reported by The Daily Astorian newspaper.

City spokesman Brett Estes said firefighters weren’t saying what caused their suspicions. He said the investigation was just beginning and that one building might be too hot for investigators to enter until today.

“At this point it is suspicious in nature,” Estes said.

The Daily Astorian reported that the properties were scheduled for a foreclosure sale Dec. 30 after Lake Oswego developer Eric Jacobsen had moved to recoup more than $840,000 in debt owed by the real estate companies of Chester Trabucco.

Trabucco told the Oregonian newspaper that the blaze started in the floorboards of the men’s bathroom in the cafe.

“That’s right in the area where there is a grease trap,” he told the paper. “We’re assuming that is a culprit as much as anything.”