The Selma Fire Department responded to a call that came in at 4:24 a.m. Monday about a house fire on the 1600 block of Church Street.

The battalion chief on duty, Doug Horton, said when firefighters went outside to respond to the call, they could see smoke from the fire.

When the department arrived, Horton said firefighters found two abandoned houses on fire, one fully engulfed.

The department was on the scene for about two hours working both fires.

“When we first got there, [one house] was fully involved. We could see fire before we even pulled out of the station,” Horton said. “The first thing when we got there was to protect the [exposed house]. It had the burglar bars all the way around it, so we had that to deal with to get in, but it was a real good save.”

Horton said there was only about 10-feet between the two houses, making it difficult to save the neighboring house.

Both houses were vacant at the time of the fire, and the owner of the lesser-damaged home, Johnson Evans, said no one had been living in either home for quite some time.

While the house that was fully involved is considered a total loss, Evans said he hopes to repair his home in the future.

Horton said they don’t know the cause of the fire, but nothing can be ruled out in a case like this.

“The cause of the fire is undetermined at this time,” Horton said. “But I can’t rule out arson. It’s the first abandoned house that we’ve had in a while, at least on our shift,” Horton said.

With both houses being abandoned, Horton said they won’t be investigating the fire as of now.

“In a case like this, we rarely investigate it,” Horton said. “If we start getting a rash of them, we’ll get the state [arson] investigator involved in it, but this seems to be an isolated deal right now.”