Debris from a collapsed first floor, shards of glass and dark plumes of smoke filled Main Street in Delanson for hours Thursday night.
"At first, it was a small fire, and then all of a sudden, the side of the house went up in flames," neighbor Paul Gallione said. "The jeep in the back caught on fire; they put that out, and then the right side caught on fire, too."
Gallione said one of the women inside 1794 Main Street had to jump off of the roof. Another one was able to get out safely, too.
While fire crews continue to investigate just how the fire started, preliminary indications link the fire to a propane tank or a furnace. And with left side of the house crumbling, firefighters had to smash the front of the house open to douse the flames with water and foam.
"You don't want to add to much weight to the structure so it doesn't finish collapsing," said Schenectady County Chief Fire Investigator John Nuzback.
Neighbors say the landlord was doing some renovations.
"I think he said he was going to have a shop in the front of it," Gallione said. "The whole thing was just redone and he did some electrical work and the walls."
Investigators are unsure if the work done contributed to the fire.
"I don't know what he did, and I don't know what the inside looks like," Nuzback said. "That would be part of the investigation. The difficulty is they can't go inside because of the structural integrity of the building, so it's gonna be a long night."