PHILLIPS — A fire that destroyed a garage and spread to a house about 10 feet away on Tuesday caused an estimated $90,000 in damage, Phillips fire Chief Jim Gould said.

Homeowner Paul Wilcox had been welding his lawnmower in the garage at his 173 Bridge St. home earlier in the day. He had shut down the welder and checked everything before he went in the house to eat lunch, he said.

Wilcox heard a big bang and discovered that his garage was on fire, Gould said.

Wilcox tried to put out the fire with a hose, but the garage was fully engulfed in flames and it was too hot for him to stay there, he said.

Franklin County sheriff’s Deputy Sandy Burke was the first to arrive on the scene  of the 1:15 p.m. fire and helped get the family’s cat out of the house, he said.

Burke also alerted dispatchers that the fire had spread to the house.

The radiant heat from the two-car garage caught the house on fire, Gould said. It melted the vinyl siding off the gable side of the house closest to the garage.

The fire extended to both bedrooms on that side and into the attic space, he said.

“We stopped it at the bedrooms,” Gould said. “It was a damn good effort by a few people. Ten minutes later, and they wouldn’t have a house.”

About 12 firefighters from Phillips, Strong and Salem Township put out the fire.

Unfortunately, during the day, there are not as many firefighters around like there would be in the evening hours, he said.

He estimated there was about $50,000 in damage to the house, including heat and smoke damage, including loss of contents in the bedrooms.

Wilcox thought the fire possibly could have started with the grass on the mower deck of the lawnmower catching fire. He had propane tanks and cans of gas in the garage that could have fueled the fire, Gould said.

It went up quickly, he said.

He estimated damage to the garage at $40,000.

Wilcox and his wife, Brenda, who was not home when the fire started, will be staying in a camper in the backyard. The insurance company has already been in contact with them, he said.

dperry@sunjournal.com