A huge fire destroyed what was once the Barnes Hotel in downtown Paulding, Ohio, on Sunday afternoon, according to the town’s mayor.

Mayor Greg White said the building has not been occupied for many years and that no injuries were reported.

The building on South Williams Street between Perry and Harrison streets caught fire in the early afternoon and burned for several hours.

“It was a very old building with a lot of old wooden timbers for the infrastructure,” he said. “It was burning very hot.”

The mayor said he could see “a ball of flame” from his backyard about six blocks from the three-story building.

The Paulding Fire Department, along with at least seven other departments from nearby communities, came to fight the blaze. White estimated that at least 60 firefighters were at the scene.

Firefighters hosed the old hotel from extended ladders and from the ground. Their goal was to protect neighboring buildings, White said.

“There was no way they were going to save the hotel as fast and as hot as it burned,” he said.

Videos of the fire posted on YouTube showed bricks littering a street by the building and a thick column of smoke rising as firefighters doused the gutted structure.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Investigators will be looking into it, the mayor said.

aingersoll@jg.net