Blaze broke out at Croydon building Friday morning, with firefighters highlighting risks from lithium batteries

An e-bike workshop has been destroyed in an early morning fire in Sydney’s inner west, causing road closures along the suburb’s shopping strip.

Residents were woken just before 5am on Friday after the fire broke out at the building on Elizabeth Street in Croydon. The Guardian has the story.

The building – which houses a business that sells, rents and repairs e-bikes – was destroyed in the blaze, with insurers and structural engineers called in to assess the possibility of collapse.

The cause of the fire had yet to be determined, Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) said.

“Whilst this property was an e-bike-scooter outlet and assembly business, there is no indication that charging batteries caused the fire,” a spokesperson said. “There is an inherent danger to these batteries once they are involved in or exposed to fire.”

The council-run Ashfield aquatic centre, located less than 200 metres from the warehouse, was unaffected by the blaze, with classes running as normal from 6am.

At a local cafe, the morning rush remained in full swing, unaffected by road closures along Elizabeth Street.

Supt Joshua Turner of FRNSW said the warehouse fire and thick smoke immediately increased the alert level for crews responding to the incident.

“When [fire crews] made access, they found it actually was an e-bike repair centre,” he said.

Read the full story here.