Volunteer firefighters from all six departments across the county battled a fire that destroyed a home on Leaf Hawk Lane Tuesday morning.

The fire in the 900 block of Leaf Hawk Lane, visible at the top of Schooner Hill on State Road 46 West, was reported by a neighbor just before 6 a.m.

Firefighters were initially concerned that a person was in the home, because they were alerted that a car was in the driveway, said Nick Kelp, chief of the Brown County (Nashville) Volunteer Fire Department.

“That, plus time of day, is usually a good indicator for possible victims in the structure if they’re not accounted for,” he said.

Firefighters attempted to perform a search of the home in an area that was not yet burning. “It’s essentially an area that a human stands a chance of surviving fire conditions,” Kelp said.

But the fire had been burning for some time before firefighters arrived, and it was taking down the structural integrity of the building, Kelp said. So they were unable to stay in the home long.

Firefighters later learned that the woman who had lived there had moved to a nursing home.

“We were super grateful for that on multiple levels,” Kelp said.

The home was a total loss. No injuries were reported.

The cause of the fire was undetermined due to the amount of damage.

All six fire departments were dispatched because the time of day made it hard to get enough people to the scene, Kelp said.

Kelp thanked everyone for their help, as well as the BP gas station for donating pizzas and drinks to firefighters. “Sheriff deputies William Pool and Colton Magner were magnificent help, as they always are,” he added.

While Nashville firefighters were fighting this fire, Harrison Township volunteer firefighters from Bartholomew County worked a vehicle crash in Brown County for them.

Nashville firefighters were on the fire scene for more than 4 1/2 hours.

Once they were back at the station, Kelp said they discussed how the response would have been different if they had paid firefighters. All fire departments in the county are run by volunteers.

“It would have shaved valuable minutes off the response time, which in this case was compared to time we could have spent searching for a possible fire victim,” Kelp said.

He estimated having paid firefighters could have shaved off around 10 minutes from their response time, “which is a long time while a fire is growing exponentially,” he said.