By Linda Taaffe

An electrical short sparked a fire in a downtown flower shop late Thursday night long after most businesses had already closed and shoppers had deserted the street. Firefighters credit a sprinkler system for preventing the flames from spreading.

Kendall Pearson, a Santa Clara County firefighter, said the store’s sprinkler system had extinguished the flames at Something Special Flowers & Gifts at 363 State Street before the arrival of the two engines, a Hazmat truck and a battalion chief but not before smoke seeped into Peet’s Coffee & Tea, adjacent to the shop.

An alert passerby on State Street spotted flames inside the shop around 10:05 p.m. and called 9-1-1, Pearson said.

The fire started in the front of the shop near a refrigerator used to keep flowers cool.

Firefighters at the scene determined that there was a failure in the wiring between the wall and the refrigeration unit.

The flames melted the power strip and burned a nearby display.

There was nothing suspicious about the fire. It was an electrical failure in the wiring, Pearson said.

Firefighters spent most of the night cleaning up water, about 3 inches deep throughout the store. Pearson estimated that there was about $2,000 to $3,000 in building damage from the water.

He did not include any estimate for damage to the merchandise.

Employee Katie Neverbutter, managing the store while the owner is out of the country, was unaware of the fire until the following morning when she arrived and saw the front door boarded up where the fire crew had broken in.

The shattered front door and the faint, lingering odor from the smoke were the only visible signs from the street that there had been a fire.

Nearby business owners were without electricity and gas temporarily after firefighters shut them off during the cleanup.

The last reported fire to shut down a business on State Street occurred at Wells Fargo Bank in 2003.