BRADFORD – As gray steam rose from the gutted but still-standing home late Friday night, firefighters continued to search for and extinguish the remnants of the fire that had swept through it hours earlier.

Called to the Middle Road at about 7:40 p.m., firefighters knocked down the fire in about 25 minutes.

“Then it was just a matter of digging it out of the wall,” said Lt. Thomas Kirlin of the Bradford Fire Department.

That would take hours.

The home was older, had been renovated and Kirlin said fire lingered in spots that were hard to reach.

Occupants of the rural house, located about a mile from the intersection of Middle and East roads, were not home at the time of the fire. Kirlin said he didn’t know the names of the owners.

Firefighters are expected to continue their investigation today into the cause of the fire. They were still on the scene at midnight Friday in what Kirlin described as a “cool down” phase, where one fire line remained active in case of flare-ups.

At one point, about 50 firefighters were at the scene. They came from Glenburn, Corinth, LaGrange and Stetson to join the Bradford Fire Department.