GUILDERLAND — Paul Oliver managed chivalry even as his house burned in the darkness of Tuesday morning.

His wife, Theresa, told the story 12 hours later as the family gathered near the charred skeleton of their house on Gardner Road.

At about 3:30 a.m., her brother-in-law, Steve Oliver, who lives next door, called her cell phone. “Everyone knows I sleep with it by my head,” she said. “I almost didn’t answer.”

The message was urgent. “Theresa, get out of the house; your house is on fire.”

Her husband said he would get their dog, an aged chocolate Labrador retriever named Jeter for the baseball player. She was to climb out the bathroom window. She did. And her husband handed the dog out to her and then crawled out himself.

He also gave her something else — one of her shirts. “He had grabbed a shirt still on its hanger and handed it to me,” she said. She put on the shirt and threw down the hanger. “He doesn’t remember it, but he did it,” said Theresa Oliver.

Paul Oliver had his own message to share. “People have to make sure they have a route out of their house in case something goes bad.”

He described the choice he was faced with at 3:30 that morning. “We looked down the hall; there was fire — bang — only one way out.”

He concluded, “If those windows weren’t there, I wouldn’t be here.”

Chief’s view

Paul Miller, the Altamont fire chief, said the call came in at 3:40 Tuesday morning. His pager told him that the house was “totally involved,” he said.

His crew got together “really quick,” he said but the fire “had a head start.”

Miller, who has been a firefighter for 33 years, said that, when he arrives on the scene and sees a fully engulfed building, “You don’t have any feeling. Your thoughts are on what to do to get the fire out safely.” He noted that this is the third serious fire he has fought in a month — each one on a Tuesday.

Miller went on, describing his first response, “You call for help to get enough manpower or womanpower.”

Eight departments responded. But, said Miller of the fire, “It was stubborn.”

He described the house as a one-story ranch, built of wood with vinyl siding over plywood. The house had an attached garage, and a fifth-wheel camper was parked alongside the garage. “There’s nothing left but the frame,” he said of the camper.

“We were unable to save anything,” Miller said. The goal was to extinguish the fire.

The closest hydrant was a mile-and-a-half away on Armstrong Circle, he said. So tankers transported water to portable ponds that the firefighters set up at the scene. Miller estimated that 100,000 gallons of water were used.

In addition to Altamont, departments from Guilderland, Guilderland Center, Fort Hunter, Voorheesville, New Salem, Knox, and North Bethlehem responded, Miller said; Berne and Westmere were on standby.

Firefighters were on the scene for nearly 12 hours. “A lot of places, the fire was still hiding…It was down in the basement,” Miller said, explaining that the floor had collapsed, making it hard to get to. “We cut stuff apart to get to it and then we soaked it until it finally went out.”

No firefighters were injured.

Miller said he talked to the two homeowners who had narrowly escaped and watched as the building burned. “I just offered my help, if there is anything we can do,” he said.

William Dvorscak was at the scene on Tuesday afternoon, trying to figure out the cause of the fire. “We’re collecting data,” he said. “It’s still under investigation.”

Regrouping

Tuesday afternoon, the sun was shining brightly on emerald green fields with the Helderberg escarpment, its trees turning from greens to oranges and yellows, in the background. The acrid smell of burned rubble still hung in the air.

“It’s been a long day,” said Paul Oliver.

He was standing with his father, Pete Oliver, who owns a 92-acre farm behind the two Gardner Road homes of the Oliver brothers.

“We wouldn’t leave here,” said Theresa Oliver. “This is family land.”

She said they were insured and plan to rebuild. The two-acre property at 6051 Gardner Road, with the house, had a full market value of $188,750, according to the Albany County assessment rolls.

“The insurance man said we should rent an apartment,” Theresa Oliver said.

But Tuesday night at least, the Olivers were going to stay on their land. Theresa Oliver’s sister, Karen Schrader, had leant them her camper.

A neighbor came by with a bed for their dog.

“I want to close my eyes tonight and tomorrow morning, it’s here,” said Theresa Oliver as she gestured toward what was once her home.

The place was a home for more than Paul and Theresa Oliver. “She hosts a lot of holidays here and has birthday parties for the family,” said Theresa’s son, David Filkins.

He was there with his children — David, 10, and Daisy, 8 but about to be 9 — four-month-old beagle puppy, Ranger, on a leash.

Mr. Filkins grew up in the house and pointed to places in the rubble where the two bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, and office had been. “See that big window?” he said pointing to a gaping empty square in a still-standing portion of the rubble. “That’s where the living room was.”

Explaining the fortitude of the family in the aftermath of the fire, Filkins said, “When it comes to this kind of thing, there are two levels of terrible — your stuff, or people and animals. My mom jumped out the bathroom window and my step-dad handed out their 14-year-old, 80-pound lab. Then he got out, and a firefighter later got their rabbit out.”

Daisy and David recalled the fun times they have had at the place. “We had a pool and sleepovers with cousins. We were going to have one this weekend,” said David. Daisy recalled the fun camping trips they had taken in the Olivers’ fifth-wheeler, which now stretched before them as just a twisted metal frame.

“I’m sad their house burned,” said David.

Mr. Filkins said that Leah Oliver, Steve’s wife, was the first to notice the fire. “She took the air-conditioner out last night and left the window open. In the middle of the night, she heard a noise and thought it was the dog scratching. But then she saw the dog was asleep,” said Filkins. “The noise was the crackling of the fire. She called 9-1-1 while Steve called my mom.”

Not everything was lost in the fire. A brightly colored afghan hung on the rack of a pickup truck in the yard on Tuesday afternoon. It was not charred or scorched. It had been in a chest in the living room, said Filkins.

“Our mother made it,” said Schrader. “She is no longer with us, so it’s really special.”

And Theresa Miller happily displayed her wedding and engagement rings to friends who stopped by to offer aid and comfort.

She told how on Monday night, as she put on rubber gloves to do the dishes, she left her rings on the kitchen windowsill.

Hours later, as she waited outside her burning house, she realized the rings were inside.

“She kept saying, ‘I want my wedding ring. I want my wedding ring,’” recalled Schrader. She told her sisters, Schrader and Loretta Klob, where she had left it.

Her sisters told the firefighters, and a volunteer from Knox was able to rescue the rings from the windowsill, said Schrade.

Theresa Oliver held her hand out to admire her rings on Tuesday afternoon. She has been married 18 years. “They still sparkle,” she said.