A multi-alarm fire severely damaged a single-family home at 15 Milton St. on Monday afternoon, July 14.

According to the father of the home’s owner – who did not want to give his name – a workman painting in the garage of the two-story house built in 1930 heard the fire alarms and smelled a burning odor sometime after 2 p.m. He is reported to have found the finished attic full of smoke and reportedly saw flames. Despite using a fire extinguisher on the blaze, the conditions only got worse after which the worker shut down all the home’s systems and called 911.

According to Belmont Fire Chief David Frizzell, the department’s entire company arrived to find flames in-between the attic walls. A hole was cut into the roof to ventilate the smoke and firefighters pulled down interior walls to get to the fire. By 3:15 p.m., the blaze was out, and crews were searching for hot spots or any lingering flames in the structure.

While there is fire damage to the attic and water and smoke damage to the first and second floors, the 2,300 square-foot house is “very salvageable,” according to Frizzell.

The homeowner’s father said his son bought the house last October “and we just about finished painting and doing the house over.”