Firefighters believe an electrical fault may have caused a fire which ripped through a Wangaratta cafe, in north-east Victoria, on Sunday night.

The business in Faithfull Street was badly damaged in the blaze, which began about 8:00pm (AEDT).

The fire is thought to have started in the roof of the building.

The Country Fire Authority’s operations manager, Stuart Kreltszheim, said there were some electrical parts in that area.

“There’s a number of electrical areas there, an airconditioning duct, some others, so it’s likely to have originated in that area,” he said.

He said firefighters were able to stop it spreading to adjacent businesses.

“This building is one block, where there’s a number of businesses that share the common roof space but it was a really good firefighting effort by the crews on scene and the incident controller to keep it to the building and the business that was affected,” he said.