Flames leap through windows at a house at 1017 Grove St. in Baldwin City. Firefighters were on the scene of the fire, at the home of Tom and Sarah Johnson, Monday evening.

As John Baker looked Tuesday morning at the rental home he owns at 1017 Grove St., he offered a grim assessment of the damage done by a Monday evening fire.

“I haven’t been inside, but from talking just now to the fire marshal I think it’s a total loss,” he said.

Baldwin City Fire Chief Allen Craig said the fire was called in to his department at 5:36 p.m. Monday, just as the weather was turning sharply colder. The department’s firefighters arrived to find the first floor of the two-story home “fully involved,” he said.

Living in the rental home were Tom and Sarah Johnson and their three children, Luke, 7, Grace, 8, and Caleb, 10.

Tom Johnson said the fire started when he switched on a breaker switch that had kicked off when the basement of the house flooded with Monday’s rains. Baker said the sump pump apparently wasn’t working and that there was a foot of water in the basement.

Sarah Johnson said the family was unable to salvage anything from inside the house but she said she was thankful her family was unharmed. The Johnsons stayed Monday night at her mother’s home in Baldwin City and will probably move in with her husband’s family in Gardner until they find something permanent, she said.

“We’re blessed,” she said. “We have places to stay, and no one got hurt.”