Firefighters have failed to find any sign of a missing 20-year-old homeless man who was squatting there in a commercial building seriously damaged by fire this morning.

A homeless woman, who was also squatting inside the building, managed to escape the inferno but said a 20-year-old man may have been trapped inside and unable to escape. 

The blaze broke out around 1:40am in an abandoned commercial building, on the corner of the Gold Coast Highway and Mermaid Avenue.

Fire crews rushed to the scene and managed to contain it, however the entire second floor has collapsed, making search effort tricky.