TIVERTON — Authorities say a suspicious blaze destroyed a former textile mill building on the Fall River line early Saturday morning.

A police officer on patrol at 1:50 a.m. noticed the fire in the vacant Bourne Mill building, a four-story structure that was intended to be converted into 20 affordable apartments as the second phase of an estimated $50-million redevelopment project.

By the time firefighters arrived, the structure was fully involved. “It was like hell on earth,” Tiverton Fire Chief Robert Lloyd said, with intense heat and flames shooting high into the air.

About 100 firefighters from 8 communities, as far off as Middletown, fought to keep the flames from damaging the neighboring five-story building at the Bourne Mill Apartments complex by aiming hoses out the windows, Lloyd said. “If that fire ever got into the five-story building, it would be destroyed.”

The neighboring buildings had already been renovated into 165 affordable and market-rate apartments that remained unoccupied as the developers, Dellbrook Construction, await a temporary certificate of occupancy, said Thomas Reed, vice president of field operations for Dellbrook. Those apartments remained intact, except for smoke damage, several broken windows and water in the basement.

It took firefighters about three hours to bring the fire in the four-story building under control, Lloyd said. Bulldozers continued to strip debris, including twisted steel beams, from the site as crews extinguished hot spots at noon Saturday.

Investigators are exploring whether the fire is linked to suspected arson fires in nearby Massachusetts, Lloyd said. The Rhode Island fire marshal’s office remained at the scene Saturday afternoon.

The 1 Mill Ave. complex had experienced several break-ins over the course of the two-plus year construction project, Lloyd said. Some teenagers grew hostile after being asked to leave the property Thursday, according to Reed.

Operating from 1883 to 1961, Bourne Mill was one of 60 mills that made Fall River one of the largest textile manufacturing centers in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It once employed as many as 1,000 people in the production of specialty cottons and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Bourne Mill Apartments complex is now owned by E.A. Fish Associates, of Braintree, Mass.

kmulvane@projo.com