BLAZE DESTROYS RESIDENCE NORTH OF ORIOLE; PORZELT FAMILY CAN ONLY STAND BY AS FIRE CONSUMES FARMHOUSE

ORIOLE -- There is no set protocol for watching your house burn. And although clearly distressed, Rich Porzelt tried to find comfort in levity Thursday.

Standing a couple hundred of yards from the fire that consumed his home, Porzelt joked about forgetting to bring hot dogs and marshmallows.

The fire destroyed the sprawling, century-old farmhouse he and his wife, Beverly, had lived in for the past 26 years at 5259 State Highway V a few miles north of Oriole.

No one was injured -- their children are all grown and married -- but most of the family's personal property was lost.

"Everything we own is in that house," Rich Porzelt said. "We got one car out of the garage and that was it."

The fire apparently started in one of the bedrooms.

About 6 p.m., Beverly Porzelt and her daughter-in-law were in the kitchen talking. Rich was at work at the family business, the Li'l Country Store.

The women smelled smoke and began looking for the cause.

When they checked the bedroom they found the rapidly spreading flames and tried to extinguish them, Beverly said. When it became clear they couldn't put the fire out themselves, they got out.

After she called the fire department and her husband, who raced home, the couple stood helpless across the road in a neighbor's yard and watched.

Within an hour the entire house was engulfed and volunteer firefighters from East County Fire Protection District were battling to keep the blaze -- which threatened nearby woods -- contained.

Neighbors stood transfixed, spellbound and horrified by the flames. One woman worried aloud about her mother who lived in a mobile home a few hundred yards up the hill from the Porzelts' property.

Other's gathered around the stricken couple, offering moral support and practical help.

The family dog, Sadie, shivered nearby in the back of a friend's pickup.

Initially, the couple thought they had lost her.

"I don't know how she got loose," Beverly said, crying. "I heard her barking, but she was tied up where nobody could get near her." Somehow, she said, the small beagle worked herself loose and bounded to where her owners were.

About 9 p.m., fire trucks began leaving the scene.

"All our guns, the boat, everything," Porzelt said. "That's not so bad. What's worse is the personal stuff you can't replace."