A rural Douglas County family leaned on the help of friends and family Saturday after fire tore through their home late Friday night.

By Saturday afternoon Willow Springs Fire Chief Lyle Bowlin was still helping his crew extinguish smoldering debris, trying to come to grips with the total loss after a night of fighting the blaze.

“You know it’s going to be a losing battle,” Bowlin said.

The fire started about 11 p.m. Friday at the Breithaupt home on East 800 Road near Willow Springs when, according to the family, an electrical outlet shorted and caught fire, sending flames up an interior wall and into the attic.

When the fire department arrived about 20 minutes later, fire had engulfed the east side of the house, Bowlin said.

“It was going pretty good when we got here,” he said.

The Baldwin, Overbrook and Wakarusa fire departments responded to the blaze, some bringing tanker trucks full of water to help extinguish the fire. But Bowlin said that after some hours of fighting the fire, the flames were too hot and spreading too fast to save the house.

Family members, who had lived there for 18 years, all made it out safely.

The property was valued at $159,000, according to Douglas County property records.

Firefighters extinguish smoldering debris Saturday after a fire destroyed a home on East 800 Road near Willow Springs on Friday night.

As Bowlin and his crew worked to knock down the house’s few remaining sections of walls, Jan Breithaupt stood by her car with a friend, staring into the rubble.

She talked briefly about the night before – the smell of smoke creeping through the house, and the blaring of the smoke alarm.

“The alarm went off, and the smoke hit us. We knew we had to get out,” she said.

The seven family members in the house Friday night escaped unscathed. The two family dogs were fine, too, and even the car – parked in the garage the night before – made it out in one piece.

Now, the Breithaupts will stay with extended family nearby and get help from a close group of friends – a comforting thought, Jan Breithaupt said, when just a night before it seemed as though they had lost everything.

“It happened, and we all made it out safe,” Jan Breithaupt said. “We’ve got friends, and we’ve got our vehicle. We’re OK.”