By Barbara Barte Osborn, Sacramento Bee

One of Truckee’s most historic buildings, the C.B. White House, was damaged in a fire early Thursday.

Donner Pass Road between Spring Street and the downtown roundabout was closed from about 4-8am to accommodate firefighting equipment from local fire departments, said Paul Spencer, fire prevention officer for the Truckee Fire Protection District.

The fire, which was called in at 3:45am, started on an outside rear wall of the structure, Spencer said. No one was in the building at the time.

“The fire was fully contained, but it’s hard to say the extent of damage to such an old, historic building,” Spencer said. The fire is under investigation by Truckee fire and police officials.

The C.B. White House is a Queen Anne-Eastlake-style Victorian built in 1874 in downtown Truckee by a mill owner, W.H. Kruger, as his family residence.

In the late 1970s, Zena Krakowsky restored the mansion, earning it the area’s first listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

After another long period of sitting empty, the building had recently been purchased by new owners and reopened as a restaurant, Spencer said.