Whole Foods Market grocery store, 1640 Chicago Ave., will be closed for at least a week because of more than $100,000 in damage caused by a fire Sunday morning.No one was injured in the blaze, but everything inside the store will have to be replaced, said assistant store manager Sean Engeman.”

All the products in there are garbage,” he said. “It was so full of smoke you couldn’t see two feet in front of your face.

“The fire started around 11 a.m. in a ventilation duct coming from the grocery store’s kitchen, said Division Chief Alan Berkowsky of the Evanston fire department. The duct, which came from the store’s pizza and rotisserie chicken ovens, caught fire when built-up grease inside it ignited.”

(The fire) had a head start because it wasn’t visible until it started coming out of the duct work,” Berkowsky said.

A customer first noticed smoke coming from the vent, but several bystanders outside the store called the fire department because they saw smoke emanating from the store’s roof. The duct ended at the roof, after running about 60 feet from the Whole Foods kitchen.

Between 30 and 40 Whole Foods employees and fewer than 50 customers were inside the store when the fire broke out, Engeman said. The employees and customers all were evacuated before fire department personnel arrived.

Because it was an “extra alarm” fire, 18 personnel, three fire engines, two trucks and an ambulance responded to the call. When the firefighters arrived at Whole Foods, the ventilation duct was “glowing orange” and looked “just like a broiler,” Berkowsky said. But between the time of the firefighters’ arrival and the time it took them to set up their hoses, the entire store filled up with smoke. “Things happened very fast,” he said.

Firefighters broke the store’s windows to clear the smoke. They extinguished the fire in about 30 minutes.

Most of the damage to the store is from smoke and water, Engeman. The fire damage was confined to the duct itself. As of 5 p.m. Sunday, the store still did not have power so Engeman did not know if the registers were damaged too.

The store’s windows have been boarded up, and signs are posted explaining that the store is closed due to fire. The store directs people to other Whole Foods Market stores in the area.

The store on Chicago Avenue will be closed for at least a week, Engeman said. But the store will re-open in time for holiday shopping.

“We just lost a week of sales,” he said.