Fire guts unoccupied home in Lehigh

Lehigh, Hillsboro, Durham, and Goessel firefighters spent 3½ hours early Saturday battling a blaze that destroyed an unoccupied Lehigh house.

Hillsboro, Durham, and Goessel firefighters were released at 4:30 a.m. Lehigh firefighters continued fighting the fire another 6½ hours.

They returned to the house a number of times that afternoon to douse smoldering spots.

Lehigh Chief Cameron Gottwald said firefighters watched in case the floor above the house’s crawl space rekindled.

Gottwald said the house, in the 200 block of N. Vernon St., was an older, two-story farmhouse-style home.

No one was living in the house at the time, Gottwald said, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.