A fire at a home in Donnelsville had firefighters working for six hours Thursday, starting at 4:40 a.m.

Efforts to extinguish the house fire were led by the Bethel Township Fire Department and involved 6 other fire departments, with five tankers, three fire engines and one ladder at the scene, blocking U.S. 40 until the the site was cleared at 11:07 a.m.

The building’s three occupants were home when the fire started. All three escaped the fire, but one man on the first floor was taken to Miami Valley Hospital for treatment for minor burns to his face and hair and for smoke inhalation. The man had gone upstairs to wake the other two occupants.

Flames were first spotted coming from several windows by a Bethel Twp. ambulance crew. A neighbor also noticed the fire and called authorities. The house was fully ablaze within minutes from when it was called in, said officials at Bethel Township.

State Fire Marshal investigators determined that the likely cause of the fire was a lamp that was knocked over into a chair. No evidence of criminal activity was found in the examination of the scene and interviews with the occupants.

Two cats and a dog were missing after the fire; the remains of one cat and one dog were recovered later.

The house, an older structure, was destroyed by the fire.