One structure destroyed in French fire in Gridley

New tonight - a structure fire in gridley severly damaged a home.

Action news now reporter esteban reynoso was at the scene and is here now with more on what happened.

We received word from calfire that the 2-story house that was engulfed in flames has been destroyed.

The fire dubbed the french fire was reported around 3 in the afternoon just south of gridley on french avenue.

You can see on this map here.

Calfire responded and put out the fire, but neighbors actions are the reason this fire didn't do anymore damage.

"report of a call from a couple houses down from here, saying that they had actually seen the fire coming from the second floor of the house."

Neighbors shot this video of smoke coming from a house down the road from where they lived, but fortunately -- "it appeared that nobody was home at the time."

Officials who first arrived on scene said the fire had engulfed the two story home.

"there were flames coming out of all three of the front windows in the second story."

Even though this fire was contained to just one structure, it was a muiltple agency effort to put it out.

"in addition to the engines, and we had one engine that came up from sutter county."

Another fire was raging in butte county at around the same time as this structure fire, and fire officials say it presented another obstacle.

"another thing that added to the challenge of this is they actually needed water tenders as well, and so we weren't able to release any because we needed all the water, all the water we could get here."

I spoke with witnesses who said once they saw the smoke they jumped into action, and fire crews took care of the rest.

Alan, back to you.

The french fire used a total 33 personnel crews including 4 water tenders and 8 fire engines.