A fire Tuesday morning at a country club that was serving as a polling place in south suburban Crete forced officials to move the voting to a facility across the street and to extend voting until 9 p.m. in the village, election officials said.

No one was injured in the blaze, reported at 6:30 a.m. at Lincolnshire Country Club, 390 E. Richton Rd., said Crete Fire Chief Lyle Bachert.

The building was evacuated immediately, temporarily halting Precinct 7 voting that started at 6 a.m. in a first-floor banquet area at the south end of the club, officials said.

Will County Clerk Jan Gould said 13 of the village’s nearly 1,000 registered voters had cast ballots before voting was halted. Ballot boxes, voting booths and other equipment were moved across the street to the Lincoln Oaks Golf Course, and voting resumed at 8 a.m., Gould said.

The fire started in a first-floor repair shop on the north end of the building and was extinguished by 9:30 a.m., Bachert said. Damage was estimated at $400,000.

“When firefighters arrived, they found the fire in a wall of a repair room, and it traveled to the second floor and attic,” the chief said. Investigators determined the fire started in an electrical junction box near the room’s ceiling, he said.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.