A house on Holly Hills Road was destroyed Wednesday night when a fire engulfed the entire building.
Firefighters with Columbus Fire and Rescue received a call about the fire at about 5:30 p.m. By the time they arrived at the home, which was at the end of Holly Hills Road off Highway 45, the house was fully involved with flames leaping into the air and catching surrounding trees on fire.
No one was in the home when the fire started, nor did anyone live in the house, CFR Public Information Officer Anthony Colom said. The home’s owner, Joseph Thompson, said he had been in the process of renovating it.
“I was about ready to move back in there,” he said.
He said his family moved into the house in 1944, where he lived for several years before he moved to a different part of Columbus. He’s been in-and-out of the house ever since, he said.
Thompson had been working in the house earlier in the day and had built a fire in the fireplace. He said he made sure he put it out, using five gallons of water, but thinks he possibly missed a spark which caught after he left.
“Lot of blood, sweat and tears in that old house,” he said.
Firefighters battled the flames more than an hour. Colom said Wednesday firefighters didn’t yet know the cause of the fire.
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