RURAL ADVANCE COUPLE LOSE EVERYTHING IN FIRE

ADVANCE -- The only thing an early-morning house fire didn't take from an Advance couple Tuesday was the support of their friends and family.

Jared and Amber Smith left their two-bedroom brick house at 6:15 a.m. to go to work. At about 9:30 a.m., Smith said he received a call from the fire department saying his house was on fire.

Firefighters from Advance and Bollinger County did what they could but the fire consumed the house and all of the Smiths' possessions. The house was along Bollinger County Road 640 about five miles from Advance.

Advance Fire Chief Dennis Crader said eight firefighters, two trucks and a tanker arrived at the scene at approximately 9:30 to find the house engulfed in flames and the roof collapsed. The only source of water firefighters had was the tanker and trucks. Crader said they shuttled water to the scene.

He said there was no hope of saving the house but firefighters tried to keep it from spreading. A pickup truck was parked a few feet from a wall and there was another structure nearby, Crader said.

Crader said the brick walls kept the fire inside the structure and helped firefighters control the fire from spreading.

"The fire had about an hour to an hour and a half start before we arrived," Crader said.

Investigators placed the origin of the fire near the living room and kitchen. Crader said they could not determine a cause of the blaze.

The Smiths, who have been married about 18 months, had been renting the house for the last nine months. Jared Smith said they had been saving to buy a home. Because they didn't have renter's insurance, replacing the appliances will be difficult, he said.

Smith said they would be staying with relatives, and friends had offered them shelter as well. "We have some money set aside that we were saving up to buy a house," he said.

Jared Smith and a few of his friends were digging through the rubble Tuesday afternoon looking for whatever mementos they could find. A section of wall was still burning slightly and smoke and steam rose from exposed floor beams.

"We've salvaged a little bit here and there," he said. "Whatever's not burned is wet."