VOORHEESVILLE — The cement steps with wrought iron hand rails at 3 Nancy Lane lead only to a charred, gaping hole where a white front door with sidelights once stood.

The empty house in the well-kept suburban neighborhood went up in flames in the early morning hours of Thursday, Dec. 15.

Neighbors Kenneth and Helen Aldous who live next door were awakened from their sleep by an across-the-street neighbor who also called 911, they said.

“When I came out in the middle of the night, all we could see were huge flames,” said Mr. Aldous.

It was cold and there were strong gusts of wind blowing from the burning house to the Aldouses’ house, carrying “incendiary materials,” said Mr. Aldous. He believes a light dusting of snow on his roof may have saved his house from catching fire.

Soon, firefighters appeared on the scene. “The huge fire truck was right here,” said Mrs. Aldous, gesturing to her driveway. “It was hard in the freezing cold,” she said of fighting the fire. “They did a great job.”

“Our neighbor just sold her house three weeks ago,” said Mrs. Aldous. They declined to give her name.

The assessment rolls for Albany County list the owner as Maria M. MacDonald and the full-market value at $190,000. MacDonald could not be reached for comment. Trulia, a real estate website listing the house, describes it as a three-bedroom home built in 1968 and pictures a fenced yard and well-appointed dining and living rooms.

Voorheesville Fire Chief Bill Reddy said the call came in at 4:30 a.m. He lives just around the corner on Scotch Pine. “I was there in less than two minutes,” he said, noting he could see the flames from his driveway.

“When I got there, the house was totally, fully involved,” he said. “The first thing we ask is if people are inside.”

He was relieved to learn from neighbors that the house was empty. “There was no sending anyone in,” he said. “It was really involved.”

The goal, then, was “to protect the structures on either side,” Reddy said.

Right away, he made two calls. One was to the North Bethlehem fire department because it has a rehab unit with a heated tent, which firefighters use in extreme cold. The other call was to the Guilderland Center fire department for its ladder truck “to get water inside the structure fire from the top,” he said.

There was a hydrant nearby, Reddy said, and there were no problems with the water freezing.

The fire was out in an hour to an hour-and-a-half, he estimated.

Asked about the cause, Reddy said, “It could have been mechanical...There was heat and electricity in the house; it could have been anything. A fire-investigation team was there yesterday,” Reddy said on Friday.

He concluded, “The fire had to be burning for a long time before somebody called it in...Everybody was sleeping. When I got there, it was gone...I’m just glad nobody was in there.”