A fire destroyed a home in Shelburne Saturday morning.

At around 1:30 in the morning — the Shelburne Fire Department responded to a house fire on Ridgefield Road.

“While I was en-route to the scene, I could actually see the flames from the house from my house because I live down in Shelburne,” says Shelburne Fire Chief Jerry Ouimet.

Ouimet says he saw the most of the home engulfed in flames upon arriving to the house.

The family was trapped on the second floor when the fire initially began.

“It just kind of increases the adrenaline a little bit when you hear there’s people trapped in the house,” Ouimet says.

The fire was a third alarm structure.

“We don’t get many of these this size,” Ouimet says. “We may get two or three fully developed structure fires a year. This was actually our second one this year.”

One neighbor recalls the scene.

“I’ve never see a fire like that ever in my life,” says Jerry Shipman.

Shipman was worried about the fire spreading to his home.

“Our homes right over there, the wind blows this way,” Shipman says. “The flames were literally going onto our house so they thought our house was going to go down pretty quickly as well.”

In total — 11 fire departments and four ambulances were on the scene.

The homeowners say they were able to escape from their second floor balcony.

The two adults and three children got out safely – but one of their dogs is believed to have not made it out.

Neighbors are ready to help the family through this tough time.

“We have a great neighborhood here,” Shipman says. “They just moved in about a year ago. They have little children that go to school with my kids. So obviously our main priority now is to get them some clothing, some toys. We just moved everything to my house so they’re going to stay with us or family.”

The cause of the fire is still unknown. We do know that the house was going through renovations.