Flames from an alley trash bin fire early Tuesday damaged a downtown Lawrence business and was the latest in a string of similar, suspicious fires since at least May, fire records show.

“Everything in here smells like smoke,” said Brit Kring, co-owner of Kring’s Interior Fashion Center, 634 Mass., as he surveyed fire damage in a back storage room several hours later.

An early-morning trash bin fire behind Kring's Interior and Fashion Center, 634 Mass. did an estimated ,000 damage to the store. Examining the damage from Monday's blaze are store owners Dale Kring, left, and Brit Kring.

The fire, reported about 1:50 a.m. by a 911 caller, spread into the back of the business, requiring firefighters to break in to the building to extinguish the blaze, said Mark Bradford, deputy chief with Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical.

The fire damaged the outside wooden wall near the trash bin and burned into the ceiling of the back storage room where carpet for sale is stored.

“Hey, I’m not complaining it could have been worse,” Kring said of damage firefighters caused in breaking through his store’s front and back doors.

Total damage to the nearly 100-year-old building was estimated at $5,000, but Kring said he expected losses to be higher.

“All of the carpet back here is probably going to have to be thrown away,” he said.

About the same time as the Kring fire, firefighters extinguished a small fire in a trash bin in an alley east of the 700 block of Massachusetts Street.

The fires have been labeled suspicious, just like five other trash bin fires that have occurred in the downtown area since May, Bradford said. He stopped short of saying the fires were intentionally set.

“There are a lot of things that could have caused them, and without an eyewitness, or finding a can of flammable liquid and pour patterns, we can’t say they were intentionally set,” Bradford said.

The fires could just as likely have been caused by people carelessly discarding a cigarette as they left a downtown restaurant or bar, Bradford said.

Nevertheless, some downtown business owners and employees suspect the fires have been intentionally set. One of them is Chuck Magerl, owner of the Free State Brewing Co., 636 Mass.

“It seems like acts of petty vandalism that have gotten out of hand,” Magerl said. “The downtown area is a very vulnerable fire scenario.”

Tape from surveillance video cameras at businesses have been examined by fire investigators in previous fires but nothing could be determined, Bradford said. Tapes from Monday’s fires were being examined by officials..