CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A South Park home is destroyed by flames New Year’s morning. Now

as the owner tries to pick up the pieces, investigators are trying to discover what

started the blaze.

The home is considered a total loss, more than half a million dollars worth of

damage. More than half of the roof is gone and most of the inside walls are black.

Firefighters are still working to find out what caused it. Right now they can’t

even say where it started, though witnesses tell me the back of the home was where

they saw flames first.

The owner’s dog was the only one home when the fire started just after 6am.

“I was coming down Sharon View and I saw flames coming out of the roof of this

house,” says Jill Nepa whocartoon lives nearby.

“It seemed to be spreading very fast.” Concerned for the home owner and neighbors,

she pulled over, called 911 and started banging on doors.

Danny Sanford lives across the street from the home at the corner of Beckford Drive

and Sharon View Road. He says when he came outside, “the back of the house was on

fire, I’d say about an 8th of the house was on fire.” He too worried about someone

being trapped inside. So he says he, “Banged on the door, tried to kick it a little

bit.”

Minutes later when firefighters arrived Sanford’s friend, Woody French describes

he, “heard like a big explosion and the house was engulfed in flames.”

The home owner was not home, butcartoon firefighters found his dog and

gave it to a neighbor. French held the dog for about 15 minutes before it was taken

to the Vet. French says the dog was, “burned pretty badly… the majority of the

stuff was right there on the head and face of the dog.”

Nepa wishes she could have done more. “I have dogs and if I had known I would have

broken a window.”

“Oh it’s horrible, January one, first of the year, what are you going to do, it’s

horrible,” says Sanford. “You have to thank God that nobody was inside the house.

”

The home’s owner did not want to speak on camera. Neighbors tell us his children

did not live here with him. Firefighters were not sure if the dog survived