Crews battled a two-alarm house fire in Star early this morning.
The fire was reported just before 3:30 a.m. just off Highway 44 west of town.
Star Fire Chief Greg Timinsky says someone passing by the home saw the flames, called 911 and then pounded on the door of the home to wake up the family inside.
Firefighters found the back of the home completely engulfed in flames when they got on scene and focused on keeping those flames from spreading to nearby trees and other exposures. They tell us the home is a total loss but nobody was injured in the blaze.
Investigators say a horse trough was used as a fire pit on the porch of the home last night and believe embers from that fire may have sparked the house fire.
Chief Timinsky tells us a lack of water supply made the fight challenging and if a hydrant had been close by it would have helped the situation.
"Honestly, our biggest problem in this area is water supply so we had to get a bunch of tenders en route to supply us water, which at that point we couldn't supply enough water when we first hit here to knock it down and once it got into the attic we were unable to stop it," Chief Timinsky said.
At one point traffic on Highway 44 had to be reduced to one lane, but both lanes are now back open.
Crews from Star, Middleton, Eagle, Caldwell, Meridian and Boise all responded to the fire. Star Fire says it will likely be on scene most of the day.
