Iris Berryhill was standing by the grill near the fryer when she smelled smoke Thursday at Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers in Athens.

It was rush hour and the restaurant at 1603 U.S. 72 East was two-thirds full of customers when the fryer began smoking and flaring up before 1 p.m., Berryhill said.

Manager Lisa Harris extinguished it, she said.

“We waited about 15 minutes and then turned the fryer back on and Lisa told me to keep an eye on it,” Berryhill said.

“I smelled smoke again, and by the time I turned around it was flaming up and it looked like it was going to engulf everything. I was scared.”

Harris knew the fire in the fryer-exhaust system behind the fryers was unreachable, even with the restaurant’s fire extinguishers, so she ordered the customers and her 14 workers from the building.

“By the time we got out it was burning through the roof,” Berryhill said.

“It spread under the roof,” Harris said. “Nice blue flames and everything. There is extensive roof damage but we will rebuild it and reopen. Athens will still have its Wendy’s.”

Athens firefighters were on the scene quickly but had to use axes and a chainsaw to open up the roof near the drive-through window to fully extinguish the blaze. Engines 1, 3 and 10 responded along with two Athens Police cruisers, two or three Athens Utilities vehicles and an ambulance.

More than an hour after the initial call, a firefighter suffered a serious cut to his arm from a florescent bulb. An emergency worker at the scene said over the emergency scanner that the firefighter’s arm was “cut to the bone.” He was being treated at Athens-Limestone Hospital.

Fire Chief Danny Southard was at the hospital with the firefighter and could not comment at the time.

Harris is not sure when Wendy’s – located directly across from Raceway – would reopen.

“We won’t know until we get in there and see the damage,” she said.

Workers may be called back in a few days to help us clean, she said.