BELLEFONTE — An early-morning fire destroyed a stately brick home near the Bellefonte Country Club Friday.

Smoke alarms roused the homeowner and may have saved his life.

Russell and Flatwoods firefighters battled flames and smoke for six hours in single-digit temperatures at the 116 Country Club Drive home of Don Weller.

By mid-day the house was a smoke-blackened shell, its roof collapsed and nearby shrubs coated with ice from fire hoses.

Weller was outside his house when firefighters arrived shortly after 6 a.m., said Russell fire chief Bernard King; he was taken to a hospital for observation but did not appear to have serious injuries, according to firefighters and a neighbor.

Weller’s wife was out of town and Weller was the only one home, King said.

From about 6 a.m. on, the fire seemed to baffle the efforts of firefighters, according to a neighbor.

“It seemed like they’d knock it down and it would come up in another place,” said the neighbor, who did not want to give his name.

“Once it broke through the roof, it was like a big chimney,” he said.

Weller told the neighbor he’d woken up to the sound of the smoke alarm and saw smoke.

Weller seemed shaken but not significantly injured, the neighbor said.

When firefighters arrived, the back of the house, where the lower-level garage was located, was burning and the floors had burned away, making it unsafe to enter, King said.

That meant firefighters had to hose down the flames from outside, he said.

“From that point, it just went downhill,” King said.

The brick construction intensified the fire inside, another firefighter said. “It holds the heat in there like a big oven,” he said.

Weller, an Ashland Inc. retiree, was taken to a hospital for observation and may have suffered from smoke inhalation, according to his daughter-in-law, Shannon Weller. “He’s doing as well as can be expected,” she said.

Fire officials probably won’t be able to pin down the cause of the fire until they speak to Weller, which they hadn’t done Friday afternoon, King said.

It appeared to have started somewhere on the lower level, he said.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.