Fire destroys Jet's Pizza in Walled Lake

WALLED LAKE, Mich. (WJBK) - Right around 7:40 a.m. Tuesday, long before it was set to open, the Jet's Pizza on Pontiac Trail in Walled Lake was on fire. Someone driving by spotted the smoke and called 911.

Crews from several different departments were there within minutes. The fire was out shortly after, but in just 15 minutes -- that damage had been done.

"I got a panicked call from my general manager, Terry, who has been with us for 10 years and he was pretty upset," says co-owner Jennifer Hill. It's the last phone call she ever expected to receive.

"If this had happened at 1:30 in the morning, it would have been a lot worse. We would've lost a lot more units. Because it happened at this time and it was daylight, and [passersby] could see the smoke, that definitely helped things out," says Walled Lake fire marshall Jason Gonzalez.

Fire torched the front portion of the popular pizza place, and moved fast. That's because the cardboard pizza boxes inside helped fuel the flames. The fire is believed to have started in the kitchen area, though the cause is unknown at this time.

The owners just remodeled the business in the last month or so.

"It's very important to me, to our owners, to get up and running as quickly as possible to make sure that we can preserve all the great employees that we have, and make sure they're taken care of and we don't have to lose anybody in the meantime," says Hill.

They say they hope to be open again in the next two months or so. The cost of damages have not yet been estimated.