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The Dean Owens family was in the process of remodeling its two-story colonial home on Main Street in Little Mountain when it caught fire yesterday.
Little Mountain Fire Chief Don Wicker thinks the fire was probably due to an electrical problem.
The Owens had turned a single-story wing of the home into a storage room, so their furniture would not get damaged during the remodel.
Wicker said the fire started in this area and traveled up a wall connected to the main portion of the house, and into the home's attic.
The fire chief added that no one had been in the house yesterday, but people were there working Wednesday.
The restoration project, which included new wiring, plumbing, a new roof and columns, was about two-thirds of the way finished when the fire broke out around 2 p.m.
Firefighters from Little Mountain, Chapin, Newberry City, Prosperity, St. Phillips, Consolidated, Fairview and Bush River responded to the call and remained on scene until 7 p.m.
The Newberry County Public Works Department was also called to bring in a backhoe to help firefighters get to “hot spots” in a wall.
Wicker said the home was made out of old sawed timber, that made it hard to put the blaze out until the Newberry Tower One, a ladder truck, was able to literally get on top of the fire, and douse it with water.
While the attic of the home was destroyed by flames, both the upstairs and downstairs received an extreme amount of water damage. The water sprayed onto the fire also filled the home's basement. One end of the home remains undamaged by the fire. In that wing the Owens' family had stored their new kitchen cabinets.
Wicker estimates that $400,000 in damages was done the home, which contained original furniture.
No one was living in the home at the time of the fire and it was spotted by a Chapin firefighter who was traveling through Little Mountain at the time.
The Owens family had owned the landmark home, built by Ed Locke, for the past 30 years.
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