BELINGTON — A single-story home located between Valley Bend Road and the Barbour County Fairgrounds sustained extensive damage during a blaze late Tuesday afternoon.

The Belington Fire Department responded to a 911 call for a house fire at the 9000 block of Barbour County Highway Tuesday, and once on the scene firefighters discovered an A-Frame structure home with heavy smoke coming from the roof area, officials said.

“When we arrived there was a lot of smoke and flames coming from the backside of the house,” Belington Fire Chief Phil Hart told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday. “It was controlled pretty quickly, but the house did receive extensive water damage because the fire got up into the attic, and a lot of water was used to get it out.”

Hart said the residence was empty at the time of the fire, and that the blaze started around a wood-burning stove inside the home.

“The fire started from a wood burning stove. It caught the wall on fire and went up into the attic,” said Hart. “All together we were there for about 1 1/2 hours, and there were no injuries from the scene.”

Fire departments from Philippi, Junior, Coalton and Elkins were all on scene to assist with the fire.

Hart said the Belington Fire Department has had its fair share of house fires to extinguish so far this winter.

“Many of the fires we’ve responded to this year have been due to alternative heat methods,” said Hart. “And that’s contributed to the weather being so cold this winter. We’ve had more structure fires than we normally have in our response area this year. Everybody needs to make sure they have working smoke detectors in their homes.”