By all accounts, the fire had been burning for a while before a neighbor called 911. The Sunset City fire station is just a block and a half away from the home but problems with the department's fire engine delayed the firefighters.
"That did happen, the fire truck didn't start, but as we know we can walk out to our own cars every day and turn the key and it not start, it just one of those fluke things," former Sunset city councilman Kevin Snow told 2News.
The "fluke" failure meant the closest working fire engine was approximately two miles away in Clinton.
Clinton Fire and several other agencies responded to the fire as Sunset's volunteers jumped in the ambulance and went to the home.
"My first response was 'why?' what happened, what went down?," Sunset City councilman Chad Bangeter said.