Jerry Greene stood in front of his burning bakery with his hands tucked into his pockets. He looked it up and down and in his wet eyes Baked in Telluride, or what was left of it, shone.

By the minute, the fire dropped chunks of Telluride history and left it smoldering in the street.

The streets were glowing in light from fire engines and hundreds watched as smoke slithered from the building’s cracks. Later, the flames began licking at the front door. At times, they shot high into the air, glowing towers amid the thick clouds of smoke. Hour by hour, one of Telluride’s iconic businesses billowed into the night air.

By the following morning all that was left of a 36-year-old business on Fir Street would be Greene, already plotting how to build the next one. “So, something good is supposed to come out of everything bad,” he said Wednesday, still smelling like rubble. “The firemen worked hard, but it was pretty much impossible to control once it was going up the walls…”

The calls came into emergency dispatch at a little after 10 p.m. on Tuesday night. Minutes later, firemen responded to Baked in Telluride, which was building smokestack skyscrapers into the air. Six hours later, all that remained of Baked in Telluride was the storefront, its glass cracked into crooked teeth, and smoldering tin that burped fumes into the smoggy morning.

The only thing investigators knew for sure was that the fire began underneath the bakery’s floor in a crawl space, where it smoldered and thwarted early attempts to drown it. Firefighters tried to break through the floor of the historic building but its history was part of the problem: the floor was stacked thick with years of revisions, and the building was packed with not only 100 years of history but also years of combustibles.

Time and time again, crews were rebuked by the fire; at one point, firemen had a 5-inch hose raining into the space they were trying to cleave into but to no avail. They tried to chainsaw through the floor but the smoke was so thick by then that it strangled the chainsaws’ motors.

As the flames pawed up from below, firemen were never able to get to them. “We could never see the seat of the fire,” said Telluride Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jamey Schuler. “We were trying to fight it from above.”

The fire department tried to break through the floor three different times in three different places, but it was soggy with fire in spots and too thick in others. Ultimately, the fire proved too dangerous for crews, and sent them back into the streets like ants scattered from a hill. When it became apparent they couldn’t save the bakery, firefighters turned their efforts to protecting the neighboring structures. For hours, a ladder-truck monsooned over the Village Market. The tactic worked, and the bakery’s neighbors avoided the same fate, though the Village Market had to close Wednesday to remove water and assess damage.

By 4 a.m., most of the flames had died down, though crews still rained out hotspots into midday on Wednesday.

Schuler said community members pitched in “like they always do.” Throughout the night and into a subdued Wednesday heavy with smoke, restaurants offered food and hot coffee for the weary.

“It’s sad to see these old buildings go,” Schuler said. “It is what it is. … I don’t think we could have done anything better.”

All told, some 50 people and all three fire stations — Mountain Village, Telluride and Placerville — responded to the inferno.

On Wednesday, Telluride Fire Protection District Fire Marshal Jim Boeckel surveyed the damage through lean eyes. He will head up the investigation into the fire’s cause and said within the next day crews would begin work on the riddle of the blaze. Also on Wednesday, heavy equipment clawed into the site; it would have been too dangerous, officials said, to leave the structure barely standing. All told, it had stood for 118 years. Until yesterday, it had employed 25 people.

Baked in Telluride was Telluride’s longest-running restaurant in one of Telluride’s oldest buildings: the bakery had been in operation since December of 1976 and the building had stood — in one version or another — since 1892. It was built as a transfer house for rail-to-animal transfers and has since housed a power company, a plumber, a welding shop and, finally, the bakery.

George Poulos was starting a bakery and needed a partner — someone with cash and baking knowledge. Greene had both. Or at least one of the two.

“I took my life savings of $1,500 and went partners with him,” Greene said yesterday. “I figured, if I didn’t spend it on something, it’d be gone.”

In a Telluride Times story from Jan. 20, 1976, Greene said the bakery would start with three bread recipes: a rye, a whole wheat and a French. “My goal with the rye,” he said at the time, “is to come up with something similar to the Jewish rye of my youth, but nobody seems to be able to duplicate that.” And, in classic Greene fashion, he added: “People think my rye bread is the greatest thing they’ve ever tasted.”

A year later, Poulos would leave town. Greene and his legion of bakers have ran the place ever since.

Initially, Greene came here from the east coast to grow KOTO Radio from seed. “I came to build a radio,” he said. “I was on a mission to build a radio, and it was going to be purist… something that would open people’s eyes to intellect and culture.

“Well, the bakery had some of the same ideas,” Greene said. “A town needs a bakery. It’s an American institution.”

Certainly, Baked in Telluride was a mountain institution: during Bluegrass patrons snaked around the block and after school, local kids poured in for two-for-one baked goods.

As it burned, Greene paced from the warm ambulance — he wasn’t hurt and neither was anyone else — to the wet and shining Fir Street.

“I just, you know, I was hoping some portion of the structure might be saved, although pretty quickly it was obvious it might be going down … I didn’t want to talk to anybody.” For hours, a man who usually has much to say was quiet, standing in the cold without a winter hat.

Baked in Telluride was a ski-bum staple, a nod to skiers living in vans and scraping by on just enough for a season pass and a bagel. Countless locals just getting by would walk over at night when loaves went on sale only to toss one in the freezer. To a great extent, Jerry Greene mirrors his bakery; he is a hardy testament to the way Telluride used to be, and he’s never afraid to say as much.

Greene’s favorite moments came years ago while working late into the night with a handful of ski bums. The skies would open up and sift snow upon them and he would know that when he left work a powder morning was waiting. With Baked in Telluride’s bread in its belly, Telluride matured.

“Sometimes, I wonder whether somebody was a happy employee… and it turns out they really felt like they gained from the experience,” Greene said.

There are plenty of those. A day after the fire, e-mails and calls poured into this newspaper. Randi Levine is one the countless people who found work at the well-worn bakery over of the years. She pulled bagels, decorated cakes and worked the register there for more than nine years in the ‘80s. Everyone — locals, tourists, celebrities — pushed open the heavy door to hang out or grab baked goods.

“There was always stuff going on at the bakery,” she said. “It was as popular as any restaurant in town. It was just a funky little place.”

Clint Eastwood patronized BIT, as did Robin Williams and Bill Murray, she said. People stopped by at all hours to relax. Old men smoked in the back corner. Half the town worked there, and everyone has a BIT story.

When she heard the news, she said: “I felt like part of my history burned down. I have lived in Telluride 20 years. When you work in a place almost half the time, that’s huge.”

Yesterday, Telluriders and tourists both made a pilgrimage to pay their respects.

“Sad,” said Brad Blackwell, a longtime local who said he knew he could count on Baked in Telluride for a 6 a.m. coffee. “Like it or not, it was a Telluride institution. They employed a lot of people for a long time. I didn’t eat there often, but it was always there when you needed it.”

Huck Cammack, a skier from St. Paul, Minn., said the place had become a landmark for him and his wife on ski vacations, and that he would often pop in for a coffee while she shopped next door.

“It’s a tragedy. I loved that place,” Cammack said, noting that he thought there was simply a low-hanging cloud over Telluride last night until he saw the flames reflected in the smoke. And indeed, a cloud did hang over Telluride on Wednesday.

“It’s a real bummer. I was going to have lunch there today,” said Amanda Sturdevant, who has lived in Telluride for eight years and often went to BIT for an everything bagel with lox spread. “It’s always been a staple. It’s amazing that it’s all gone.”

Not gone for long. A day after his bakery burned to the ground, Greene was planning a new one. One that would draw on the old red shed’s architecture but could also offer a more modern space. The Zoline estate, he said, owns the property, and his insurance is good. Local restaurants have offered to hire some of employees while he rebuilds. “I’m going to build a modern structure that reflects the former bakery,” he said. “The architecture should capture the spirit of the old bakery but be more functional.” He is unable to stop working, even with no office or books. No shelves to fill with cookies or macaroons.

“I need to buy a new computer and a new copy of QuickBooks,” he said yesterday afternoon. He’s already got things in motion and plans on asking the town’s planners to move as quickly as possible to help him rise the bakery.

He scratches his head and has to pause, as if BIT is still burning in front of him. “I think I’m too tired. … I’ve just got to take a nap,” he said. “I’m hurtin.”

— Katie Klingsporn and Ben Fornell contributed to this report.