The O'Donnell Building under construction in 1912. 

Amanda Baessler was exchanging gifts during a game of White Elephant with her family in Tumalo when she got the call that the building that houses the business she started four years ago, MiNT Nail & Hair, was on fire.

Unable to do anything until the fire upstairs was put out, Baessler and her business partner, Jesse Messerle, watched what was happening to their salon together online on a feed from their security camera.

“It felt like being out of control,” Baessler said Thursday.

Baessler and Messerle are two of a handful of business owners dealing with the fallout of an apartment fire that prompted evacuations and closed downtown streets briefly on Christmas Eve night.

Around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Bend Fire and Rescue responded to a report of a fire in a second-floor apartment in downtown Bend on Brooks Street, which is the alleyway behind the buildings on the west side of NW Wall Street.

The occupants, Florencio Guevara and Viviana Rodriguez, evacuated the apartment with no injuries, but two pets — a turtle and a snake — did not survive the fire.

Several businesses, including Tactics Skate & Snowboard Shop, Wall Street Bar, the clothing store Jack and Millie, Taj Palace Indian Cuisine, as well as MiNt Nail&Hair, have experienced smoke and water damage from the apartment fire, said Jennifer White, who owns and lives in the building. Other offices, apartments and a tattoo parlor on the second floor may also have damage, according to Bend Fire and Rescue.

“Our priority is to get everyone back in business,” White said.

The Bend fire department estimates $100,000 in structural damage to the building, and $500,000 in losses from what was inside the apartment, the building in general and five businesses.

The building, constructed in 1912, originally housed the O’Donnell Meat Market, according to the Deschutes Historical Museum.

“It’s heartbreaking to see (a historic building) go up in flames,” White said. “But it could have been so much worse.”

While Taj Palace was open for lunch on Thursday morning, the other four businesses were closed, in various states of cleaning up smoke damage and taking stock of what has been lost.

Wall Street Bar aims to open again by next week. Adam Gerken, the retail director of Tactics, said there is no firm reopening date for the business yet, but hopes to clean and donate all of the smoke-damaged inventory.

Rainbow International Restoration was busy scrubbing and vacuuming soot off the walls of Jack and Millie on Thursday morning, but there is no set reopening date, according to a sales associate at Ju-Bee-Lee, a store which shares the same owner.

Messerle and Baessler have a fear it will take several weeks before they will be able to operate their salon in this location again. On Christmas Eve, the business owners were greeted with 2 inches of water pooling onto their floor and trickling from the walls, ceiling and light fixtures.

“It was like it was raining indoors,” Baessler said.

Inside, the boutique smells like a smoldering campfire. In a pool of water and under a thin layer of soot lay what the owners estimate to be about $15,000 in water or smoke damaged hair dryers, beauty products and other equipment.

Just by being out of business today, Messerle estimates the business lost $1,000.

“We’re losing everything we were working toward,” Messerle said. “We’re just a small, local boutique.”

In the meantime, the two hope to find a temporary location and equipment in the hopes of serving 6 to 8 weeks worth of clients who were booked through the new year.

“We were making it … we were doing really well,” Messerle said, tears welling in his eyes. “This has knocked us down.”